Mind, Brain, and Self in Psychoanalysis: III. Psychoanalytic Perspectives After Freud

Following in Freud's footsteps, analysts have assumed one or other of the available views regarding the mind–body relation. A selective review of the more prominent positions regarding the mind–body relation among postfreudian analysts reveals the wide variation in positions taken or implied, reflecting much of the ambiguity in Freud's own theory. My review and critique of these positions finds difficulties with most formulations that endorse outright dualistic or monistic positions. Some analysts propose concepts that draw mind and body more closely together in relatively unified formats that come closer, in my view, to grasping the inherent unity of the mind–body complex. I conclude that in both theoretical and practical terms, psychoanalysis requires an understanding of the mind–body relation that integrates mind and body into a common frame of reference, so that both mental and physical activities are seen as issuing from a common ontological source or agency. Separation and independent investigation of the mental and the physical are methodologically expedient, but do not argue to a corresponding duality in the object of study.