Neurobiology and psychoanalysis

Abstract

Psychiatry obtains benefits from integrating the findings of neurobiology with the knowledge of depth psychology. In this paper, relevant recent research in neuroscience is reviewed from the perspective of psychoanalytic theory. Psychoanalytic experience and hypotheses have stimulated numerous experiments and research projects in neurobiology. Neurobiological findings have brought forward the neurophysiological substrate of clinical phenomena described by psychoanalysts, assisting in the specification of some theoretical notions, and making us modify others that were considered as already established.

From a neurobiological viewpoint, some studies considered pertinent are commented upon on associations, apperception and unconscious perception, memory, and hemispheric specialisation and its psychological corollary.