The aims of this book are modest but far-reaching. They are modest in the sense that the book aims to introduce (and illustrate) a new scientific method, which consists in nothing more than a combination of two existing methods. The farreaching aims of the book arise from the scope of the opportunities that are created by this new method, for we firmly believe that it paves the way for an integration—on a sound empirical basis—of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, the two major approaches to the study of mental life which characterized the twentieth century.

It is easy to forget that psychoanalysis is a young science. According to its pioneer, it was born “in 1895 or 1900 or somewhere in between”. These dates mark the period during which Sigmund