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Neural foundations of learning are being discovered, with far-reaching ramifications for cognitive science (Kandel, 1983; Schwartz, 1987, 1988; Rescorla, 1988; Alkon, 1989). This work establishes the importance of associative learning, a phenomenon that is of much potential interest to psychoanalysts, who, after all, attempt to learn about patients via their “free associations.” The neurophysiologists' work supports the ubiquity of Pavlovian or classical conditioning in the acquisition and activation of learning in various species, including humans. Psychoanalysts may welcome these developments, for if, as I will attempt to show, psychoanalytic practice is compatible with classical conditioning theory, we may be within view of a time when, as envisioned by Freud, neural correlates of psychoanalytic hypotheses can be established (for efforts in this direction, see Meyersburg & Post, 1979; Reiser, 1984; Schwartz, 1987, 1988). Whether one gravitates toward a positivistic or a hermeneutic view of the science of psychoanalysis, it seems desirable to establish that one's view of how the mind works does not violate knowledge gained from brain science of how the brain works.
Psychoanalysis and learning theory have followed parallel and