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Neuropsychoanalysis focuses on the neural counterparts of psychoanalytically interesting phenomena and has left the difference in the metaphysical presuppositions between neuroscience and psychoanalysis unexamined. The authors analyse the logical possibilities concerning the relation between the brain and the mental unconscious in terms of the serial, parallel, epiphenomenalist and Kantian conceptions, and conclude that none of them provides a satisfactory ground for neuropsychoanalysis. As far as psychoanalytic explanations refer to the mental unconscious, they cannot be verified with the help of neuroscience. Neither is it possible to form a picture of how a neuro‐viewpoint might be of help for psychoanalytic theorizing. Neuropsychoanalysis has occasionally been seen as a reductionist affair, but the authors suggest that neuropsychoanalysts themselves lean on the hybrid conception, which combines neuroscientific and psychoanalytic viewpoints. The authors state arguments in favour of the interfield conception of neuropsychoanalysis that takes seriously the metaphysical tensions between neuroscience and psychoanalysis.

The relationship between neuroscience and psychoanalysis is studied by taking “the new mechanism of neuroscience” under scrutiny. That new trend stresses that neuroscientific explanations are mechanistic explanations in particular. Since the issue of psychological mechanisms lies at the core of psychoanalysis, it is crucial to study the relationship between neural and psychological mechanisms. The authors argue that neuroscience cannot verify psychoanalytic theories. However, by combining neuroscientific and psychoanalytic (psychological) viewpoints, it will be possible to approach a more holistic picture of psychological phenomena, here suggested by a new conception of defense mechanisms.

The scope and limits of neuropsychoanalysis are studied through the concept of the “psychic apparatus.” This is a central concept in psychoanalytic thinking, but neither Freud nor present-day neuropsychoanalysts have been able to tell whether or not it refers to a neural “thing.” The authors argue that it refers not only to the brain, but also to personal history, the dynamics of mental states, and their possible repressive functions. Thus, it cannot be reduced to neurophysiology. On the contrary, metapsychology, and thereby the term “psychic apparatus”, fall into the domain that evolutionary biologists and the philosopher Daniel Dennett call the design level. It is suggested that, in terms of clinical practice, the major shortcoming of neuropsychoanalysis is its inability to incorporate (repressive) functions of mental states. Claiming that psychoanalysts too hastily abandoned metapsychology, the authors consider the possibility of creating a “new metapsychology” within the scope of neuropsychoanalysis.

The philosopher John Searle has called Freud’s idea about repressed contents “incoherent,” “factually empty,” and “implying dualism.” Thus he has been seen as a critic of psychoanalysis. This view is questioned in the present article. Searle shares the central ideas of psychoanalysis, and the differences between him and Freud are conceptual. Problems with unconscious meanings and mental contents of the repressed are treated here as philosophical, and the debate on this issue is suggested to have minor relevance for clinical data and psychoanalytic practice. The authors of this article prefer the terms “unconscious meaning preservation” and “meaning manipulation” instead of repressed contents. It is problematic to show how repressed contents would exist other than as neurophysiological structures. However, talk about repressed desires and memories is assessed as unavoidable and reasonable for psychoanalytic practice.

The distinction between implicit (non‐conscious) and explicit (conscious) knowledge made by cognitive scientists is applied to the psychoanalytic idea of repressed contents. The consequences of repression are suggested to have been caused by implicit representations. Repressed memories can also be treated in terms of explicit representations, which are prevented from becoming activated. Implicit knowledge cannot, however, be made conscious, and thus the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed desires and fears that have never been conscious is contradictory. This tension may be relieved by reconceptualising the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed. It is suggested that this could be seen as creating explicit knowledge about the effects of implicit representations. By applying the implicit/explicit knowledge distinction, psychoanalytic ideas concerning the repressed could be connected to current views in the domain of cognitive orientation.

Storytelling and active listening in interaction processes have been a vital core of biblio/poetry therapy long before current “narrative therapies.” The invention of the self and others through expressive resources inherent in language is incorporated in this article within biblio/poetry therapy. Especially poetic communication conveys, through texts, “transformative” transferences and countertransferences that foster the creative imagination, “dancing with words.” The author also proposes that there can be “static” textual transferences and countertransferences that maintain a monological stalemate, a desert of words. Biblio/poetry therapy is seen as a performance scene where co-tellings, co-constructions and co-interpretations of life intermingle, and create shifting worlds of meaning.

It has been supposed that those who give many Rorschach movement responses and score high on the TAT Transcendence Index are more inhibited in their motor activity. In previous studies motor inhibition was investigated by experimentally preventing motor activity. In the present study the effects of long-term motor inhibition on movement perception and fantasy level were explored in 19 physically handicapped children, ages 11 to 15 years. Analysis showed that the physically handicapped children produced more (both human and animal) movement responses than the 19 normal children. Fantasy in the TAT was also higher in the former group. The theoretical basis of projective movement responses and fantasy in physical handicap needs more clarification. A more detailed approach in qualitative analysis of the movement responses is also important.

In all four groups of 97 gravely psychosomatic patients the scores of the anatomical Rorschach responses are higher than the reference value, the responses being mostly of the bony/skeletal type. Atresponses can give information of issues related to the body self and disorders in body image, self-awareness, self-concept, or individual identity.