What’s next?

As we come to the end of this course, I hope that you have a better sense of what a mind is, how it works and what it is for. I’ve aimed to facilitate this by taking what Humanities disciplines like philosophy and psychoanalysis have to offer and aligning it with insights from the neurosciences, as I believe this is how we can best understand what a mind is. I call this interdisciplinary approach neuropsychoanalysis. It’s about trying to understand how the business of being a person – the self – relates to what we know about the physiology and anatomy of the brain.

For those who are new to the field of psychoanalysis and would like to learn more, see my three-part online seminar series on a practical and contemporary introduction to psychoanalysis, which is available here.

While psychoanalysis offers tremendous insights into unconscious thoughts, feelings and emotions, neuroscience offers us an opportunity to test and develop some of these ideas scientifically. A neuropsychoanalytic approach allows for a combination of subjective reporting and objective measurement. If you are a practitioner in any discipline involving the mind, I hope I have convinced you that this approach holds great scope for understanding and treating mental disorders.

If you are interested in being part of this work or want to know more, please visit the website of The Neuropsychoanalysis Association (NPSA), which promotes inter-disciplinary work between the fields of psychoanalysis and neuroscience. NPSA also now offers an exciting new online neuropsychoanalysis learning platform called NPSA Learning. Those of you who are interested in gaining further knowledge about the mind and brain will find it very informative, and I highly recommend that you have a look. NPSA Learning provides a window into a world of clinical insights and research findings, offering a forum for leading researchers and clinicians from both psychodynamic and biological perspectives. It allows you to navigate easily accessible video-based courses by a range of well-known authorities, from disciplines including neuropsychology, neurology, psychiatry, clinical psychology, and psychoanalysis. Each course is comprised of chapters, with assessments at the end of each to test one’s knowledge; and each lecture comes with its own additional content.

For those who might have missed this earlier in the course, here is the reading list that I recommend for those who would like to look further at some of the concepts and material we have covered during the last few weeks:

• To assist in understanding neuroscientific concepts and articles:

Solms, M., & Turnbull, O. (2002). The Brain and the Inner World. Other Press (NY): Karnac: London

• Introductory text to neuroscience, neuroanatomy, clinical neuropsychology and related fields:

Blumenfeld, H. (2010). Neuroanatomy Through Clinical Cases. U.S.A.: Sinauer Associates Inc.

Mesulam, M.M. (2000). Principles of Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology (2nd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.

Feinberg, T.E., & Farah, M.J. (2003). Behavioral Neurology and Neuropsychology (2nd ed). New York: McGraw-Hill.

Coetzer, R. & Balchin, R. (2014). Working with Brain Injury: A Primer for Psychologists working in under-resourced settings. Psychology Press: Sussex

• To assist in understanding how neuroscience and psychoanalysis interact:

Solms, M. (2015). The Feeling Brain. Karnac: London

Fotopoulou, A. (2012). The history and progress of neuropsychoanalysis. In: A. Fotopoulou, D. Pfaff, & M.A. Conway (Eds.), From the couch to the lab: Trends in psychodynamic neuroscience (pp. 12-24). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press

Schwartz, C. (2015). In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis. New York: Pantheon Books.

Solms, M., & Turnbull, O.H. (2011). What Is Neuropsychoanalysis? Neuropsychoanalysis, 13, 133-145.

• Teaching neuroscience to psychoanalysts:

Panksepp, J., & Biven, L. (2012). The Archaeology of Mind. Norton (NY)

• Representative references on brainstem basis of consciousness and affective consciousness, which in turn cite further experimental literature:

Panksepp, J. (1998). Affective Neuroscience. New York: Oxford University Press.

Shewmon, D., Holmse, D., & Byrne, P. (1999). Consciousness in congenitally decorticate children: Developmental vegetative state as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Developmental Medicine and Child Neurology, 41: 364–374.

Parvizi, J. & Damasio, A.R. (2003). Neuroanatomical correlates of brainstem coma. Brain, 126, 1524–1536.

Merker, B. (2007). Consciousness without a cerebral cortex: A challenge for neuroscience and medicine. Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 30: 63–134.

Damasio, A. (2010). Self Comes to Mind. New York: Pantheon.

Damasio, A., Damasio, H. & Tranel, D. (2012). Persistence of feeling and sentience after bilateral damage of the insula. Cerebral Cortex, 23 (4): 833–846.

Solms, M. & Panksepp, J. (2012). The id knows more than the ego admits: Neuropsychoanalytic and primal consciousness perspectives on the interface between affective and cognitive neuroscience. Brain Sciences, 2, 147-175.

Solms, M. (2014). A neuropsychoanalytical approach to the hard problem of consciousness. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience, 13 (2), 173-185.

Solms, M. & Friston, K. (2018) How and why consciousness arises. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 25: 202-238.

If you missed the reference list on confabulation literature, you will find it here.