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Arnold Modell, whose clinical and theoretical contributions to psychoanalysis have long been valued and used with great effect, has turned his attention to the new neuroscience. In his new book, Imagination and the Meaningful Brain, he hopes to meld psychoanalysis and neuroscience. The latter has already demonstrated its investigative power and, with the brash confidence of any new science, generally sees itself as ultimately “explaining” the human mind on an anatomical-physiological-chemical basis. Modell is not the only psychoanalyst to have become impressed with the “hightech” methods developed in the last fifteen to twenty years for probing the inner workings of the central nervous system at different levels of its hierarchical organization. Indeed, much systematic work has already started at the Arnold Z. Pfeffer Neuro-Psychoanalysis Center of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute, under the vigorous leadership of Mark Solms. And psychoanalysts, whether acting as individuals or in organized groups, can hardly be discouraged from active, even excited, interest in these recent developments. Still, a detailed survey of any new development in science will highlight the false starts, the well-considered but mistaken assumptions, the technically naive or too-simple methods that litter its path of progression. Analysts should be familiar with how this has occurred in psychoanalysis itself—and is still occurring! This ongoing process of evolution through natural selection in any vigorous science is both its tragic-heroic drama and its proof of true vitality.
For those concerned with the natural history of psychoanalysis, these are interesting times. Psychoanalysis is now plagued (or blessed) with multiple, fundamentally different theories and their associated investigative methods and clinical techniques. And along