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Studies of neuroscience, including those involving the brain, have been an increasing focus of scientific research. Psychoanalysts should welcome information derived from these studies to help elaborate their theories and clinical interventions. Additionally, they should collaborate with neuroscientists, when possible, in the development of further research ideas. An isolationist approach that walls off psychoanalysis from other disciplines may preserve a particular form of psychoanalysis but will ultimately further marginalize our profession. Mark Solms, in his discussion, describes how his productive, though complex, relationship with the neuroscientist Jaak Panksepp, led to an expansion of their thinking about psychoanalytic and neuroscientific ideas. Efforts to engage with other disciplines, such as has occurred with infant observation and psychoanalytic research studies, have drawn interest from practitioners initially dismissive of psychoanalytic treatments. Recent psychoanalytic treatment studies, including those of our group on panic disorder, have included assessments of biomarkers and neuroimaging that have helped elucidate processes that may contribute to positive treatment outcome (for example, Milrod et al., 2016).
The authors and discussants of this issue demonstrate how psychoanalysts can be curious and thoughtful about neuroscientific ideas in ways that enrich, rather than disrupt, their psychoanalytic treatments. Among many questions, these practitioners are particularly curious about how information from the body becomes translated into symbolic terms and how we might better identify aspects of intersubjectivity. Findings in neuroscience have been and will continue to be an important source of information for these and other issues in psychoanalysis, and psychoanalysts, such as those who have written for this issue, will help to identify how these developments can further our analytic work and better relieve our patients’ distress.