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ABSTRACTAs the philosophical basis for neuropsychoanalysis, dual-aspect monism is fundamental to the entire neuropsychoanalytic project. However, dual-aspect monism has been criticized not only from without but also from within neuropsychoanalysis. This paper considers criticisms of dual-aspect monism from withinneuropsychoanalysis. These might be summed up as a concern that the differenceat the level of epistemology (neuroscience, psychoanalysis) and phenomena (objectivity, subjectivity) must not be washed away by an appeal to a common ontology. In response, I propose to supplement dual-aspect monism with the philosophical framework of Transcendental Materialism. In this view, epistemological difference between the dual aspects is secondary to antagonism at the level of monistic ontology. Transcendental Materialism begins with the question: what sort of nature must nature be to give rise to two irreducible perspectives such as neuroscience and psychoanalysis? I argue for supplementing dual-aspect monism with Transcendental Materialism through a review of Mark Solms’s work on the hard problem of consciousness via Karl Friston’s Free Energy Principle. Within the Solms-Friston framework, the informatic mechanisms that give rise to dual-aspect epistemologies rely upon ontological antagonism. Principles of a transcendental materialist dual-aspect monism for neuropsychoanalysis are put forward.

ABSTRACTThe neuropsychoanalytic theory of repression as premature automatization is a major clinical contribution of neuropsychoanalysis. One of its clinical implications is that psychoanalysis works with (declarative) derivatives of the repressed to gradually automatize new non-declarative action plans that better meet one’s needs. This supposes a certain link between the repressed and its derivatives. However, the way derivatives are linked to the repressed has not been elaborated. Here, I propose a consilience between hierarchical cognitive control (instantiated in basal ganglia-prefrontal cortex loops) and the fantasy (as developed in Lacanian psychoanalysis). I claim that this structure provides the link between the premature automatized repressed and derivatives. Specifically, higher-order, abstract (non-declarative) rule systems govern the contextual selection of actions to achieve a goal-state. For premature automatized action plans, which have a generalized status and confidence, the abstract rule system in which they are nested is commensurately generalized, even though it does not work. This approach emphasizes how prematurely automatized motor plans are nested within a structuring hierarchy that effects their instantiations across various interpersonal and fantasmatic scenes.

ABSTRACTMeta-psychological bridges between neuroscience and psychoanalysis have focused on Freud’s structural model [Kaplan-Solms & Solms, 2002. Clinical studies in neuro-psychoanalysis: Introduction to a depth neuropsychology(2nd ed.). London: Karnac Books; Solms, 2013. The conscious id. Neuropsychoanalysis, 15(1), 5–19]. While other psychoanalytic schools have been in dialog on specific concepts, alternative full-scale meta-psychologies have received less attention. This paper maps the brain through the Lacanian triad of the real, imaginary, and symbolic. Dynamic localization of these concepts avoids neuro-structural reduction. Right and left cortical hemispheres appear necessary (but not sufficient) for imaginary and symbolic functions respectively, with the frontal lobes underlying social and self-reflective functions. The real is supported by subcortical affective and motivational structures, particularly the automatization of non-representational systems prior to hippocampal development. This project highlights the structural disjuncture (impossibility) which is constitutive of human subjectivity and brain function.