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ARTICLE HISTORY Received 15 March 2022; Accepted 15 March 2022
Many psychoanalysts believe that neuroscience inherently can and should influence psychoanalysis, and it is crucial to examine and incorporate relevant information (Busch, 2019b), whereas others speak, sometimes vehemently, of the irrelevance and even damage of applying these findings to psychoanalysis (Blass & Carmeli, 2007). Therefore, for psychoanalysts writing in this area, it is important to be specific about how neuroscience affects their theoretical and clinical perspectives. Psychoanalysts also need to be alert for confirmation bias, slanting neuroscientific findings to fit their preexisting conceptions and approaches. Dr. Kernberg makes a strong case for the relevance of neuroscience to psychoanalytic concepts of drive and the dynamic unconscious but is less clear about its impact on technique. His conclusions raise important questions about and possible reformulations of psychoanalytic theory and treatment regarding the nature of affect and drive, self and other representations, the structure of the unconscious, unformulated experience, the impact of trauma, and the role of the body.
Kernberg describes a revision of psychoanalytic theory based on neuroscientific information indicating affects are the primary motivational systems, rather than drives. This reconception is largely derived from Panksepp’s (1998) findings of a series of motivational systems, each found in different areas of the brain. This perspective places affects in a central position with connections to neuroscience on the one hand and the several psychological roles that affects play in human functioning and psychoanalytic notions on the other. Kernberg emphasizes the adverse impact of overwhelming negative affects and the important links of affect to self and object representations as building blocks of intrapsychic systems.
Kernberg elaborates his view that affects are also the building blocks of driv