7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
1/9
This article was downloaded by: [Adelphi University]On: 23 August 2014, At: 00:20Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registered office: MortimerHouse, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journalfor Psychoanalysis and the NeurosciencesPublication details, including instructions for authors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rnpa20
Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza(Trieste)Carlo Semenza
a
aDepartment of Psychology, University of Trieste, Via S. Anastasio, 12, 34100, Trieste,
Italy, e-mail:
Published online: 09 Jan 2014.
To cite this article:Carlo Semenza (2001) Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste), Neuropsychoanalysis:An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 3:1, 38-45, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2001.10773335
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2001.10773335
PLEASE SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLE
Taylor & Francis makes every effort to ensure the accuracy of all the information (the Content) containedin the publications on our platform. However, Taylor & Francis, our agents, and our licensors make norepresentations or warranties whatsoever as to the accuracy, completeness, or suitability for any purpose ofthe Content. Any opinions and views expressed in this publication are the opinions and views of the authors,and are not the views of or endorsed by Taylor & Francis. The accuracy of the Content should not be reliedupon and should be independently verified with primary sources of information. Taylor and Francis shallnot be liable for any losses, actions, claims, proceedings, demands, costs, expenses, damages, and otherliabilities whatsoever or howsoever caused arising directly or indirectly in connection with, in relation to orarising out of the use of the Content.
This article may be used for research, teaching, and private study purposes. Any substantial or systematicreproduction, redistribution, reselling, loan, sub-licensing, systematic supply, or distribution in anyform to anyone is expressly forbidden. Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditions
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2001.10773335http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/15294145.2001.10773335http://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://www.tandfonline.com/page/terms-and-conditionshttp://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2001.10773335http://www.tandfonline.com/action/showCitFormats?doi=10.1080/15294145.2001.10773335http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rnpa207/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
2/9
38
(1998b), Preliminaries for an integration of psycho
analysis and neuroscience. Brit. Psycho-Anal. Soc.
Bull., 34 9 :23-38.
(1999), Towards an integration
of
psychoanalysis
and the neurosciences. Part 2: Syndrome analysis of psy
chic functions.
Forum der Psychoanalyse, 15:58-70.
(In German)
(2000), Freud, Luria and the clinical method. Psy
choanal. Hist., 2:76-109.
Centre rCognitive Neuroscience
School
Psychology
University
Wales, Bangor, 383670
Gwynedd, Wales
LL57 2DG, U
e-mail: [email protected]
Carlo Semenza
Response to Commentaries by
Carlo
Semenza (Trieste)
General
While waiting for relevant case studies, neuropsychoa
nalysis, as I think this journal is trying to promote,
can only be an intellectual exercise. This exercise of
exploring the fields of psychoanalysis and neurosci
ence primarily consists
of
the search for concepts that,
while developed in one
of
the two disciplines, may
turn out to be useful if somehow incorporated into
the other.
The shared belief is obviously that psychoanaly
sis and neuroscience, while differing in aims and
methods, are ultimately about the same
thing-the
hu
man mind. We know that the two disciplines have
been separated almost from the very beginning, and
that adepts of one field have generally gone their own
way without knowing too much about the other field.
In many respects this separation was desirable,
and dictated by theoretical necessity and lack of em
pirical findings bridging the two fields. In the past
decade, however, the opinion emerged that there was
no longer a reason for this state of affairs. It was intu
ited that the advanced knowledge in neuroscience
could now allow useful interaction with psychoanaly
sis. I am also convinced that the reverse is true: Psy
choanalysis can indeed inspire interesting
interpretations
of
findings in neuroscience.
Within this framework I felt I could offer a few
suggestions. These were by no means prescriptions, as
some of my commentators, notably Green, understood
them to be. My aim was only to provide some food
for thought. In short, my main suggestions were the
following:
Carlo Semenza, M.D., is Professor of Neuropsychology at the Univer
sity of Trieste, Italy.
If psychoanalysis is to benefit from neuroscience,
this could better and more naturally happen with
the mediation
of
cognitive psychology.
2 Cognitivism is not a psychology entirely extrane
ous to Freud s thought. If Freud s scientific back
ground and his
work on
aphasia in particular are
closely considered, his familiarity with ideas and
methods that would later be the basis of cognitive
psychology is revealed.
3 Cognitive neuropsychology and psychoanalysis
have methodological affinities. The supremacy of
single case methodology, valid in both disciplines,
stems from what cognitive neuropsychologists
have called the principle of transparency: Pathol
ogy, provoking an imbalance among working struc
tures and processes, may highlight, in specific
cases, functions that are obscured by the harmoni
ous flow of a relatively undisturbed mind.
4 Connectionist models should be adopted with the
utmost caution. Shallow analogies will not work
and would make any theorization more prone to
criticisms of Popper s type (while I believe that,
properly defended by the same sort of arguments
that cognitive neuropsychologists use, psychoanal
ysis could instead be virtually immune to such dev
astating objections).
5 Somehow, against immediate intuition, the modu
larity theory may be useful, especially in a less rigid
form than Fodor s. There are indeed theoretical
distinctions within memory functions that are neu
rologically implemented. These distinctions may be
useful when considered within psychoanalysis. A
key concept in Fodor s theory, that of informa
tional encapsulation, may perhaps be specula-
7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
3/9
Psychoanalysis
and
Cognitive Neuroscience
tively played with in psychoanalysis in a useful
way.
This series
of
suggestions appears to have stimu-
lated in my commentators, who sometimes curiously
contradict each other, a variety of criticisms. Some of
these, I am afraid, are entirely pointless, since they are
directed toward something I never said. I will willingly
answer the others, and, indeed, in some cases I will
incorporate them into my own arguments. Had I more
time and space, I would have indicated potential diffi-
culties myself and later shown how they could be ac-
commodated. Instead, I will comment
on
new
suggestions that, following on from my own, seem to
open space for some advancement, and I will take the
opportunity for further speculations.
The Issue of Cognitivism
I thought my position
on
cognitivism was clear. A
basic problem for neuropsychoanalysis is how to
bridge findings and theories in neuroscience with
findings and theories in psychoanalysis. I started by
stating that I did not believe there was much within
the indubitable progress made by neuroscience in the
century after Freud abandoned neurology to encourage
any new step by neuroscience toward psychoanalysis
and vice versa. Speaking
of
a profitable alliance or,
more remotely, reunification into a unitary discipline
(the lat ter may be an idealistic or even undesirable
outcome) is irrelevant to the present arguments.
Neuroscience, by its nature, can hardly influence
psychoanalysis directly. Modern images of the work-
ing brain, or impressive acquisitions in neurochemis-
try, do not reveal much about mental processes. There
are, however, interesting findings that lend themselves
to promising speculations. The data on the differential
maturation
of
the hippocampus and the amygdala,
which can explain infantile amnesia, are an example
of
this. Another example is the data about the damage
a psychological trauma can cause to hippocampal
structures, via release
of
corticosteroids, which can
explain posttraumatic amnesia.
These examples are not mine: The value
of
these
findings for psychoanalysis has been pointed out by
the neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel
(1999). Kandel is not a cognitive neuroscientist, but
he has studied the difference between declarative and
procedural memory. Without knowing about such a
difference, we would not be able to appreciate the
implications
of
the above mentioned data. Most
of
the benefit psychoanalysis can derive from hard
neuroscience therefore needs to be derived through the
mediation of cognitive science.
In the same way, I speculate that knowledge
of
the phenomenon
of
blindsight may end up enlight-
ening us about psychological mechanisms supporting
projective identification. But only through cognitively
oriented studies can we understand the extent
of
a
phenomenon that not only (unconsciously) acquires
information but is also primed by it.
The mediation
of
cognitive science is necessary
in all these cases to the benefit o f psychoanalysis.
Those who think that basic neuroscience can directly
inspire psychoanalysis should provide examples.f re-
liably produced, these examples would not, however,
undermine the fact that in so many cases mediation
through cognitive science proves necessary. On the
other hand, I never argued that cognitive science can
do without biological data, as some commentators
seem to have understood. I would not otherwise waste
most
of
my time with neuropsychology. However, as
I argued with the Mendel example, one can sometimes
provide good theories and discover interesting facts
without knowledge
of
structure. Uncoupling brain and
cognition, exactly as Freud did, may not be a mortal
sin.
The way I described cognitivism, with the help
of
Gardner s list, does not bind to particular subtheo-
ries, nor does it impinge on the uses one may want to
make of its basic tenets. The issue of the computer
metaphor, which literally nobody believes anymore,
may be nonetheless useful in providing ideas about
a sometimes desirable level
of
description
of
mental
processes.
f
the temporary neglect of affect, context,
and so on, was a useful way to start, nobody would
deny that now is the time to direct cognitive analysis
toward emotional aspects
of
our mind. Not doing this
would soon relegate cognitivism to the Stone Age.
The emotional domain definitely does not deserve a
lower epistemic status. There is nothing, in principle,
about keeping this attitude that corresponds to more
than a strategic choice. Moreover, psychoanalysis can
lead the way.
reud
All I claimed about Freud is that he was not culturally
opposed to the ideas that later developed into cognitiv-
ism. And, perhaps, that some psychoanalytic concepts
may be harmlessly translated into, or find their corre-
spondents in, cognitive terms. This is not an original
7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
4/9
40
claim of mine. Erdelyi s book, which I mentioned not
without some criticisms, already made the idea popu
lar a few years ago. I
just
added some evidence from
the history
of
neuropsychology that apparently es
caped Erdelyi s attention. I insist that
Freud s
analysis
of
aphasia in theoretically defendable linguistic terms
is what makes his essay very similar to the work
of
modern cognitive neuropsychologists. John Marshall
adds even more to the same effect.
My mentioning the diagram makers, which dis
turbs Brown so much, did not ignore the fact that
Freud harshly criticized them. It was simply meant to
show that Freud was very familiar with their kind of
reasoning and that he beat them at their own game,
using the same logic (here I am again backed by Mar
shall), while indeed reaching very different conclu
sions.
It must be acknowledged that it has been through
using a similar logic that modern cognitive neuropsy
chologists, whatever their demerits, have, especially
in the realm
of
language, described cognitive pro
cesses at a level of detail that has so far been unsur
passed. Experiments with normals have generally
confirmed these observations. Indeed, I must concede
that there may be some truth in Kinsbourne s argu
ment that,
if
neuropsychoanalysis were to succeed
where Freud had to abstain, it would be in terms
of
models at a far more general level than that at which
cognitive neuropsychology currently operates. I sug
gest, however, that we wait and see. Surely fine
grained concepts like the episodic buffer, a newly
theorized component of short-term memory (Badde
ley, 2000), may well find their utility in understanding
processes in the therapist-patient interaction (see re
sponse to Saling for more).
Methodological Affinities
Considering the above, it may not be just a coincidence
that cognitive neuropsychology and psychoanalysis
share some basic methodological assumptions. As
Modell correctly puts it, ,[Both] psychopathology and
neuropathology can be seen as a kind of deconstruc
tion that teases apart functions that are transparent and
cannot easily be observed in health.
Contrary to what Kinsbourne thinks, however,
theoretically relevant single cases are not selected for
different reasons in the two disciplines. What Kins
bourne captures is a sociological-situational state of
affairs. Most cognitive neuropsychologists hold aca
demic positions and are not directly responsible for
Carlo Semenza
the care of patients, from whom they do not derive
their income. They chase interesting cases, how
ever, out of a huge population and are only allowed
to study those in which they intuitively identify a po
tential theoretical interest, after a short period of con
tact and little testing. With respect to this position,
psychoanalysts have advantages and disadvantages.
They mostly work on their own and generally can
hardly afford to choose only prima facie scientifically
interesting patients. They may, however, eventually
discover the theoretical interest of patients in the
long run.
Indeed, cognitive neuropsychologists tend to re
port cases that are unusual in the apparent selectivity
of their cognitive deficit, which is then construed as
revealing impairment
of
a previously unknown mental
operation. , In contributing to the advancement of
their discipline, psychoanalysts do exactly the same.
They tend to study and repor t on patients in whom a
given symptom stands out as very prominent. This
symptom is then generally interpreted as reflecting an
imbalance in psychodynamic functions that may thus
be better identified. Little Hans was not drafted to be
described by Freud among his several patients. His
phobia made him interesting, and informed Freud
about mental mechanisms that we all share.
The danger
of such a procedure is surely that of
post hoc explanations, but this danger is equally
shared by cognitive neuropsychology and psychoanal
ysis. The necessary countermeasures are exactly the
same (even
if
psychoanalysts seem to care less). Con
verging evidence should be sought in both instances.
Connectionism
It should be clear that I did not criticize connectionist
models in themselves. They are very likely to directly
reflect the working
of the mind at levels in which
psychoanalysis is indeed pivotally interested. My pres
ent concern is, however, that their heuristic value may
be limited. I cannot see how, in psychoanalysis at the
present moment, one can adjudicate among different
alternatives on the basis of connectionist modeling. It
seems to me that all that is left is the chance of making
a shallow analogy. This does not seem to be the wisest
way to deal with complexity. I might be wrong but,
a scientist and not necessarily as a therapist, my
style of thinking needs to have some stricter control
over the concepts that I manipulate. Reading some
psychoanalytic literature, especially outside the main
7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
5/9
Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Neuroscience
journals , makes me wish that my attitude was more
widely shared.
Modularity
I have admittedly used modularity
s
a metaphor and,
in my own version (Semenza, Bisiacchi, and Rosen
thal, 1988), underlying its epistemological value.
Again, my choice may be related to my own way
of
reasoning, but I think there are good, independent rea
sons to seek inspiration from modularity theory. Psy
choanalysis demonstrates that some information in
our minds may segregate itself from other information.
f
one judges from papers appearing in major
psychoanalytic journals, from conferences and group
studies that are organized
llover
the world, the con
cept of independent types of memory, as theorized in
cognitive psychology and supported by neuroscience,
is now ethusiastically (though often naively) adopted
in psychoanalytic circles. I still think it may
e
a good
idea to employ the concept
of
informational encapsu
lation. I now realize, however, that I should have ex
plained my thinking in greater detail and
in
a more
precise way. Some commentators have objected that
informational encapsulation does not account for the
dynamic process
of
repression. True: but, when speak
ing about encapsulated memories, I was mainly refer
ring to what happens in the unconscious portion
of
the ego that is not repressed. This portion would corre
spond to Hartmann's concept
of
an area of the ego
that is free
of
conflicts. Kandel (1999) has identified
the same area as a content
of
procedural memory. This
area includes functions that are present from birth:
motility, perception, association, and so on. These
functions mature in parallel with drives, and relatively
independently of conflicts. A subject makes the expe
riences leading to the formation of the self via these
systems. Absence
of
empathy or excessive intru
siveness, for example, could determine,
s
an adaptive
and initially useful response, isolation
in
proce
dural memory
of
these ill-represented (or nonrepre
sented,
if
one sticks to a narrower sense
of
representation that seems to be preferred
in
psycho
analysis) memories. These memories, which may
never become verbal, would emerge mainly
s
somatic
sensations, resulting in suffering, nightmares, acting
out, and difficult relationships. Less primitive, yet
hardly accessible, procedural memories may establish
themselves as action patterns later in life, through the
process
of
identification. None
of
these memories,
which I would call encapsulated because
of
their auto-
matic unconscious emergence, have ever been re
pressed.
In conclusion, before answering individual com
ments, let me return to the opening arguments
of
this
response. I said I consider neuropsychoanalysis an ap
pealing (at least to me) intellectual exercise. I also
believe it is a useful one. I do not know where it will
lead us (that 's part
of
the appeal). Psychoanalysis has
taught us that free imagination can lead us to unfore
seeable truths. In a few years we will be able to mea
sure the mileage we have run.
f
it is short, I for one
will be ready to give up. Considering the huge amount
of
ideas that have been raised in the very recent years,
however, I am optimistic. All the more so, as I believe
this neuropsychoanalysis group is ahead
of
the game.
Welcome
on
board, you who dare
Response to Brown
I cannot but share Brown's bitterness in witnessing
history being written by the winners. Acting not in
New York, but at the margin
of
Western geography,
and being subjected to Anglo-American linguistic im
perialism (since misunderstanding seems around the
corner, I must rush to specify that I thank the same
linguistic group for being born a free man), I know
the feeling all too well. This notwithstanding, I feel,
in this case, more at ease than Brown.
I indeed gave credit to two very successful
schools
of
thought that Brown has opposed for a long
time (e.g., Brown, 1988): the diagram makers, espe
cially in the modern version resurrected by Geschwind
(1965), and that
of
so-called cognitive neuropsychol
ogy. I easily admit to having been educated and
strongly influenced by both. I did not, however, accept
more than I wanted to. Wherever it felt appropriate I
went my own way and undertook serious opposition
against what did not convince me. This is not the right
place to enter into what could be a complicated discus
sion. I will therefore just provide some explanation.
I was very cautious in speaking about the diagram
makers: All I said was that Freud was very familiar
with their models and that these models could be con
sidered to be early versions
of
cognitive neuropsychol
ogy models. This is what many would subscribe to
(see Marshall), and does not imply an uncritical accep
tance
of
the diagram-maker school.
Brown's theory, I hope to report it correctly, is
that brain damage reveals normal stages in the mo
ment-to-moment processing of
cognition. The errors
produced by patients are the result of incomplete pro-
7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
6/9
42
cessing at a certain stage. This is the way Brown in
tends what I called the pr inc iple of transparency,
and I would certainly side with him on this issue.
Cognitive neuropsychologists, he claims, only con
sider the final conscious) content
of
a mental repre
sentation rather than the stages through which that
representation unfolds. I ll leave aside the question of
whether this is always entirely true. I can only say
that, in my own version of the transparency principle
see Semenza [1996], for the latest version), I state
that what is revealing is what the patient does instead
of what the patient does not do. As a consequence,
the analysis of errors becomes more important. The
implications coincide exactly with
Brown s
views. I
believe, however, that many who still call themselves
cognitive neuropsychologists would no longer object
to these views.
Disagreements with individual positions do not
mean rejecting what could, theoretically, be put to
work
profitably. I thus think that there is no danger in
borrowing some concepts from cognitive neuropsy
chology that may turn out to be useful in psycho
analysis.
Response to Green
I do not believe the moon is made
of
gorgonzola. It
may eventually be found that our satellite is indeed,
under the surface crust, mostly made of this special
kind of blue cheese, but that is not what I believe now.
Just in the same way, with the same degree of cer
tainty, I do not believe the following:
Most psychoanalysts are unwitting perverts;
2 Freud s better work is in the aphasia book than in
the Project ;
3. There is nothing to learn from the observation of
pathology;
4. Analysis
of
behavior should be conducted at the
neurological
level ;
and, last, but not least;
5. Sexuality is dirty, old-fashioned, and irrelevant to
present knowledge.
I wonder what led Green to understand other
wise? I also stated that I doubt that our knowledge of
neuroscience, with respect to what was available in
Freud s time, would allow without the mediation of
cognitive science) a more fruitful interaction with psy
choanalysis. This is indeed debatable, but it is none
theless what I believe. Again Green seems to have
understood the contrary.
Carlo Semenza
I am fully aware of the diversity of psychoana
lytic endeavors and of the variety of different schools.
I mentioned Fonagy 1999) only because he had re
cently published something about the sort
of
things
neuropsychoanalysis may be doing. I felt I could use
these works as an example to comment upon. I could
have chosen from a dozen other articles in major jour
nals. I by no means believe that this is the only inter
esting and valuable stuff psychoanalysts could be busy
with. I actually believe that neuropsychoanalysis has
a long way to go before producing anything as valu
able as, for instance, Green s own
work
on narcissism.
Amidst this cloud of misunderstanding, Green
raises some very interesting questions. One concerns
the different training needed for psychoanalysis and
neuroscience. Green seems to think that training in
one domain is incompatible with training in the other.
I do not expect everybody to agree with this position
entirely. While resisting the urge to engage in a debate
on the matter, I suggest that Neuro Psychoanalysis
takes the challenge for an open discussion seriously.
The other question concerns the type of memory ap
pearing in dreams. I believe that this is a very im
portant question, although I do not think that I have
an answer. But I feel I can speculate on one aspect.
Recollection of dreams enters psychoanalysis with an
episodic character. Elements
of
dreams are often
loosely related to each other: This may be the reason
why they are difficult to remember. Once shared with
the analyst, dreams enter semantic memory in both
the patient and the analyst). As such they can establish
new, meaningful connections with stored information
and thus provide the patient and the analyst with new,
potentially healthy, solutions.
Response to Issaharoff
I am grateful to Issaharoff for rephrasing what I said,
in words that would make it understandable to a wider
audience. He does so in a very scholarly and stimulat
ing fashion.
Issaharoff correctly understands my use of
com-
putation and of modularity I do use the former as a
metaphor and the lat ter as a strategy. He also under
stands how I use the idea
of informational encapsula-
tion
I do indeed refer to the difficulty in changing
procedural mechanisms and their motor circuits. But
there are other qualities, besides informational encap
sulation, that I think may be pathologically segregated
pieces
of
procedural memory which resemble modular
features. Automatic activation is one important char-
7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
7/9
Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Neuroscience
acteristic. Also, once action stems from these encapsu
lated memories, it runs all the way with little chance
of being inhibited.
Issaharoff, unlike Green, seems to be prepared to
understand the reasons why I criticize some psychoan
alytic work. As he says, authors in this discipline,
more than elsewhere, have chosen theories and clinical
data according to their convenience. I would add that
sometimes they feel authorized to write, typically un
like Freud, in a very obscure way.
While I argued that one way
of
describing what
may happen in psychoanalysis is to say that nondeclar
ative aspects of a patient s memory are transformed
into declarative sentences, Issaharoff observes that this
is an interesting contribution which psychoanalysis
submits to cognitive science. This strikes me
s
a very
intelligent remark.
Response to Kinsbourne
Most of what I have to tell Kinsbourne
is
contained in
my general response. I have already answered Brown
about the necessity
of
looking at the quality of errors.
I feel inclined to defend psychoanalysis against
one unjust criticism. Kinsbourne states that The
credibility of psychoanalysis s a science would bene
fit from studies which, based on how one pat ient s
disorder is construed, successfully predict similar
problems in another patient who appears to have un
dergone a sufficiently similar experience (p. 26).
This may be acceptable, and indeed I believe that is
the way psychoanalysts actually think, unless, how
ever, one is ready to accept the naive position that the
sufficiently similar experience should be an objec
tively similar one. Psychoanalytic theories would be
true in this case, for instance,
if
all individuals who
had undergone a given trauma showed the same symp
toms. This is simply ridiculous. It may take years,
instead, to be a good enough analyst to gather evidence
that a given experience is lived, by a single patient, in
a way that is emotionally equivalent to that
of
an
other patient. This is the correct way, but I also believe
that it accommodates generalization.
The interesting part of Kinsbourne s comment is
in his final proposals. Brain lesions can both exag
gerate existing personality traits and engender new and
different ones. They can also create bodily states that
defy the patient s understanding How o patients
react dynamically to brain damage that not only re
stricts and distorts their experience, but also trans
forms their cognitive style and the coping mechanisms
at their disposal? (p. 26). All these are very fascinat
ing questions and I hope they will soon be addressed
properly. Freud himself could have done this: There
is nothing modern neuroscience could have added. Has
Turnbull anything to say about this (see below)?
Finally Kinsbourne accuses me of sweeping
claims because, accompanied by words of caution
which he ignores, I argued that Freud came close to
discovering the basic tenets of cognitive neuroscience.
Toward the end of his comment he, instead, states: If
Sigmund Freud were reincarnated in the 21st century,
I suggest he would choose to be a neuropsychologist. ,
I ll leave to the judgment of our readers
s
to which
of us provides the more sweeping claims to this forum.
Response to Marshall
I am glad to have Marshall s support about my inter
pretation
of
Freud s background and
of
the logic he
used in his criticism of the diagram-makers neuropsy
chology.
Marshall offers his own speculation as to why
Freud abandoned neuroscience. He focuses our atten
tion on Freud s theoretical problems with hysteria. I
think that, from a historical point of view, he is right.
That is indeed how, so far as facts are concerned,
everything started. Marshall then quotes his own
work
on hysterical paralysis as an example of what we may
aim at doing. I cannot but subscribe. Incidentally, that
study is one interesting example
of
the few honest
uses of the new neuroimaging techniques, in support
of
neuropsychoanalysis.
Marshall expresses his perplexities about the
ability of modularity theory to deal with prima facie
central
functions. I will also mention elsewhere
(see my response to Modell) that cognitive neuropsy
chologists have conquered from within the modularity
framework functions considered by Fodor to be non
modular. Marshall takes the example
of
beliefs. Well,
beliefs may stem from different components of the
memory systems. Different parts of the brain may en
tertain different beliefs. Somatoparaphrenia, which
Marshall takes
s
an example, may consist of the delu
sional belief that
one s
own paralyzed limb belongs
to somebody else. I once observed this condition in a
neurologist, who insisted
on
his delusion despite a still
intact knowledge of his discipline, including the con
cept of somatoparaphrenia.
7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
8/9
Response to Modell
I have little to say here that I did not say already in
my general response above. Modell provides a series
of
provisos that I have nothing against. I just must
insist that I do not feel bound to many
of
the literal
implications of Fodor s modularity theory, at least not
in this context. I also have to remark that, in the same
way that Freud did, cognitive neuropsychologists in
terpret the symptoms of aphasia psychologically rather
than physiologically. As some cognitive neuropsy
chologists would say (but I would not go so far), Ev
erything may well happen in the elbow rather than in
the brain.
I ll
take the opportunity here to deal with the
issue
of
innateness. Modell quotes Karmiloff-Smith in
an attempt to argue against the idea
of
innate func
tions. Whatever the merits of Karmiloff-Smith s argu
ments, her criticism of
Fodor s theory is not
particularly well taken (and, I believe, entirely unnec
essary to her theories). It gives a biased description
of
modularity theory. The typical argument (often re
peated, I am afraid, in the early years of cognitive
neuropsychology by some of the British representa
tives) uses reading capacity s an example. This capac
ity, it is claimed, cannot be sustained by innate
modules because most
of
humanity has been illiterate
until a few decades ago. Evolution would not have
had the time. This is plain nonsense. Reading may
have recruited visual capacities which evolved for
other purposes-for example, the one distinguishing
single patterns (like single letters) in a whole, or alter
natively, the one able to distinguish organized clusters
(like a whole word). I speculate that, since even emo
tional behavior has regularities that do not escape a
single neurologically intact human individual, there
must be some space to inherit behavioral patterns.
Ethology provides examples in animals.
I think it may not be improper or too unorthodox
to wonder whether some of
the functions psycho
analysis has discovered are innate, activated uncon
sciously, run automatically, and cannot be worked
upon except at considerable cost, and so on. These
would be the characteristics of modules, evolved to
make mind functioning more efficient. Of course these
would not be functions that Fodor would have thought
of s modular. He would have relegated them to the
nonmodular, central systems. But I believe that
neuropsychology has effectively demonstrated that
functions like calculation, considered by Fodor s
nonmodular, are instead vis-a-vis pathological find
ings, better viewed as modularly organized. I do not
Carlo Semenza
see why, in principle, this could not be the case for
functions of psychoanalytic interest.
Response to Saling
Saling seems to elaborate on my view that there is not
much to learn from localization for the purposes of
neuropsychoanalysis, not even that which
is
per
formed via the new techniques. The interesting phe
nomenon to observe is indeed dissociation. As I said,
for psychoanalysis the prima facie interesting dissocia
tions are those concerning different long-term mem
ory systems. Since Saling mentions short-term
memory, I ll take the opportunity to expand upon what
I argued in the general response.
A newly described component
of
the short-term
(working) memory system is, alongside the three al
ready described components (the central executive, the
visuospatial sketch-pad, and the articulatory loop), the
episodic buffer. This system is a limited capacity
temporary storage system, presumably located in the
frontal lobe, and, unlike episodic long-term memory,
it is preserved in amnesia. It is capable of integrating
information from a variety of sources, and serves the
purpose
of
reflecting on that information, manipulat
ing and modifying it. The episodic buffer acts under
the control
of
the central executive, whose guidance
is necessary to retrieve single episodes in the form
of
conscious awareness. According to Baddeley (2000),
this system provides a mechanism for creating new
cognitive representations and may play a special role
in separating accurate from false memories. This sys
tem may be interesting to consider vis-a-vis several
processes in psychoanalysis. In the patient-analyst in
teraction, for example, the content
of
the two episodic
buffers
is
shared and ultimately allows construction
of semantic memory. They may influence each other
in interesting ways, to be theorized in neuropsychoa
nalysis.
Response to Turnbull
Again, I must repeat that I did not contend that Freud
founded cognitive neuropsychology. And I am entirely
neutral about what Freud would have done if he con
tinued to be a neuropsychologist.
Solms s theory (quoted by Turnbull) that Freud
lacked the concept of the functional system, in the
sense popularized by Luria, has some loose similarity
with my theory that he lacked the concepts
of
cogni-
7/25/2019 10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)
9/9
Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Neuroscience
tive psychology. Both
us believe that
he
lacked,
rather than neurophysiological notions, some theoreti
cal means. I think, however, that with only Lur ia s
concept,
which I believe he had some intuition, he
would not have gone so far.
Turnbull is not afraid speculation, and takes
the chance wondering why Freud did not investi
gate the biological basis the psychological topics
that were interest to him. This
is
an interesting
question. I would not be that quick to take for granted
the fact that Freud was interested more in the neuro
psychology emotion than in the neuropsychology
cognition. Especially since phenomena like those
mentioned by Kinsbourne (and by Marshall) were
more or less under the observation his contemporar
ies. And,
as
Solms and Saling (1986) have aptly re
minded us, he was familiar with the work
Hughlings
Jackson. He chose instead to work on aphasia.
Turnbull nicely displays his argument
in
the style
a detective story. He carefully examines means,
motive, and opportunity. This does not lead him to
firm or particularly interesting conclusions. Just to
play along, I may add another, perhaps trivial, consid
eration. I suspect that since he got involved in devel
oping psychoanalysis, Freud was happy enough with
that; i t was his own creature. He wanted to provide a
more solid possible basis for it. Expanding his theori
zation to what we call neuropsychoanalysis, which he
may have perceived (at that time)
as
marginal, would
have taken too much energy (and perhaps unwise
doses cocaine), even for the immensely energetic
person that he was. Luckily, he left that task for us.
References
Baddeley, A. (2000), The episodic buffer. A new compo
nent working memory?
Trends in Cognit. Sci.,
4(11):417-423.
Brown, J. W. (1988),
The Life
the Mind.
Hillsdale, NJ:
Lawrence Erlbaum.
Fonagy, P. (1999), Memory and therapeutic action. In
ternat.
Psycho-Anal., 80:215-223.
Freud, S. (1919), On the teaching
psychoanalysis in uni
versities.
Standard Edition,
17:169-173. London: Ho
garth Press, 1985.
Geschwind,N. (1965), Disconnection syndromes in animals
and man.
Brain, 88:585-644.
Kandel,
E
(1999), Biology and the future psychoanaly
sis.
new intellectual framework for psychiatry revis
ited.
Amer.
Psychiatry, 156 4 :505-524.
Semenza, (1996), Methodological issues. In:
The Black
well Dictionary Neuropsychology,
ed. G. Beaumont,
P. M. Kenealy, M. J C. Rogers. Oxford: Blackwell,
pp. 215-225.
Bisiacchi,
P
S., Rosenthal, V (1988), A function
for cognitive neuropsychology. In: Perspectives on Cog
nitive Neuropsychology,
ed. G. Deres, Semenza, P.
S Bisiacchi. Howe, U.K.: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 10-42.
Solms, M., Saling, M. (1986), On psychoanalysis and
neuroscience: Freud s attitude to the local izationist
method.
Interna
Psycho-Anal., 67:397-411.
Department
Psychology
University Trieste
Via S Anastasio, 12
34100, Trieste, Italy
e-mail: [email protected]
Top Related