The COPE Study Group on Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience was created in 2009 by the Committee on Psychoanalytic Education of the Board on Professional Standards. Originally co-chaired by Charles Fisher and George Fishman, the study group took on the task of developing educational materials and programs about the relationship of psychoanalysis and neuroscience for the American Psychoanalytic Association, its candidates and members, and its institutes. Original members of the group included Virginia Barry, Linda Brakel, Marcia Cavell, Andrew Gerber, Richard Kessler, David Olds, Regina Pally, Bradley Peterson, Arnold Modell, Jose Saporta, and Elise Snyder. The group was constituted to include psychoanalysts, neuroscientists, and at least one philosopher. We sought a diversity of points of view about the relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience in order to support a critical and reflective response to the issues. Thus we made sure to include individuals who were committed to exploring the connections between psychoanalysis and neuroscience as well as “neuro-skeptics.”
The co-chairs consulted with prominent neuroscientists, Eric Kandel and Joseph LeDoux, to hear their ideas about how our group might function. Following our first meeting in 2009, we prepared a mission statement that said, in part:
Our purpose is to explore and disseminate knowledge about psychoanalytic theory and practice as it relates to contemporary research in cognitive and affective neuroscience, and in other cognitive sciences. We aim to explore the ways in which knowledge in each discipline can stimulate research and clinical investigation in the other and deal thoughtfully with the methodological difficulties of interdisciplinary work.
In 2012, Richard Kessler replaced George Fishman as co-chair of the group. (Additional history about the early development of our group can be found in the TAP Fall 2009, Vol. 43, No. 3, on the APsaA website.)
Since its inception, this study group has coordinated a discussion group at each of APsaA's two yearly meetings. The discussion group, “Research on the Relation of Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience,” formerly chaired by Mort Reiser and Elise Snyder, is now coordinated by Fisher and Fishman in keeping with the goals of the COPE study group. Guest presenters during this period have included Kerry Ressler, Amit Etkin, Richard Kessler, Wilma Bucci, Peter Freed, Fred Levin, and Regina Pally.
The COPE study group has assembled a number of curricula on the topic of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, which are in use at various institutes around the country. The curricula are available online and may be downloaded from the APsaA website. In order to access these materials, go to the Member Section of the APsaA website. When you click on that section, a drop-down menu appears. Click on the section entitled Committee Resources and Workrooms. Within the workroom for the COPE Study Group on Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience, near the top of the page you can click to download Curricula on Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience. About 20 curricula are included. Anyone in the public can access this material. However, if you log in as an APsaA member, some additional options will be presented.
Beginning in January 2012, the COPE Study Group on Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience began sponsoring a series of three symposia at successive national meetings of APsaA. The first Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience Symposium, chaired by George Fishman, featured Andrew Gerber speaking on “Empirical Social Cognitive Neuroscience Research as a Basis for a Comprehensive Theory of Psychotherapeutic Change.”
The second symposium, held in June 2012 and chaired by Fisher, featured Howard Shevrin's compelling presentation, “How a Comprehensive Psychoanalytic Theory Can Integrate Clinical Observation and Neuroscience Experiments in the Investigation of Unconscious Processes and Primary Process Thinking.” In an astonishing series of experiments beginning in 1968, Howard Shevrin and his colleagues at the University of Michigan provided the first demonstration of electrical changes in the brain accompanying
Charles P. Fisher, M.D., is co-chair, with Richard J. Kessler, of the Committee on Psychoanalytic Education (COPE) Study Group on Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience. He is a training and supervising analyst at the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis.
Richard J. Kessler, D.O., is chief medical officer of Adults and Children with Learning and Developmental Disabilities in Bethpage, N.Y., and faculty at the Institute for Psychoanalytic Education, NYU Medical Center, where he teaches a course on neuroscience and psychoanalysis.
unconscious mental processes, thus refuting the allegations of behaviorists, who denied the existence of unconscious thought.
Subsequent work demonstrated primary process thinking in unconscious mental life. In a 1992 study, individualized psychoanalytic formulations of unconscious conflicts were validated in a series of phobic and anxious patients. These formulations relied upon specific psychoanalytic theories. This result prompted Adolf Grünbaum, the noted critic of psychoanalysis, to acknowledge that Shevrin and colleagues had demonstrated the presence of unconscious conflict in the symptomatic patients.
However, Grünbaum continued to maintain that Shevrin had not demonstrated a causal connection between unconscious conflicts and the patients' symptoms. After coming to agree that he had not yet demonstrated a causal connection between conflicts and symptoms, Howard Shevrin designed an elegant experiment showing direct connections between unconscious conflict, mental inhibition, and the presence of anxiety symptoms. Grünbaum's response was, “I am satisfied.” (Additional details about this work are available at: )
In January 2013, the Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience Symposium will feature Mark Solms.
In response to a request for distance teaching of a course on psychoanalysis and neuroscience from one of the APsaA institutes, the COPE study group proposed to create a DVD library of excellent lectures on the subject. We intend to address the perceived learning needs of candidates at each institute, as determined in an informal survey, recognizing that theories, attitudes, and concerns vary greatly among institutes and individuals.