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Gedo introduces this volume by restating his view that “it is not possible to systematize the clinical data obtained through the psychoanalytic method without articulating one's basic biological assumptions” (p. ix). Taking issue with the hermeneuticists, Gedo has remained committed to psychoanalysis as a discipline grounded in biology. Freud's metapsychology, employing a concept of psychic energy derived from nineteenth century materialism, was an effort
to bridge the gap between biological and psychological phenomena under a unifying theoretical framework. Gedo has rejected Freud's metapsychology but has not explicitly formulated his own biological assumptions until now; this book is his attempt to do so. It is not an attempt to review the literature on, or integrate recent findings about, the interface between neuroscience and psychoanalysis. In this sense, the title of this book, The Biology of Clinical Encounters: Psychoanalysis as a Science of Mind, may be somewhat misleading one. The term “biology” here refers to Gedo's concept of psychobiology, i.e., the mental processes subserving adaptation. With that in mind, one reads this book for the pleasure of reading Gedo, not for new insights into the biology of the mind-body duality.
Because this book is a highly personal statement and an attempt to place previous work in a consistent context, the reader will find much that is familiar from the author's extensive past contributions. Here, Gedo reiterates his basic views: (1) that personality rests on a hierarchy of personal aims, ranging from the biological needs of the infant through the subjective wishes (conscious and unconscious) of the adult; (2) that personality develops as the result of a learning process, unfolding in an epigenetic sequence as an attempt to meet these needs; (3) that deficits of function (apraxias) and distortions of function (dyspraxias) may occur at any stage, leading to maladaptive patterns of thought and behavior; and (4) that, theref