A Systems Approach to Behavioral Neurobiology: Integrating Psychodynamics and Neuroscience in a Psychiatric Curriculum (Lacy and Hughes, 2006)

Psychodynamic and neuroscience learning have historically taken place separately, with different teachers who often have opposing clinical orientations. In “A Systems Approach to Behavioral Neurobiology: Integrating Psychodynamics and Neuroscience in a Psychiatric Curriculum,” Lacy and Hughes made an impassioned and elegant argument for a new theoretical and educational model grounded in an understanding of behavioral neurobiology that will ultimately facilitate acceptance of psychodynamic psychiatry and psychoanalysis as legitimate, scientifically informed approaches to psychopathology and treatment. Utilizing a common, scientifically accepted language anchored in neurobiology helped counteract the idea that psychodynamic approaches are anti-scientific or that biological approaches account for all aspects of mental experience. Because the brain is the primary organ of involvement in psychiatric disorders, clinicians should have a detailed foundation regarding neurobiological development and pathology and be able to relate complex mental and emotional experiences to their neurobiological underpinnings. Although many psychotherapies have their own particular vocabularies and ways of describing change, these tend not to be applied in uniform ways, preventing them from achieving wider acceptance and interfering with multidisciplinary dialogue. Lacy and Hughes proposed remedying this problem through education around a set of unifying biological principles that build upon each other, have a common language, may be applied to many theoretical frameworks, and that illustrate and affirm psychodynamic concepts.

The authors emphasized a neural network/representational approach to neurobiology that views the mind as containing multiple complex integrated systems. They described a sequential educational progression