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Curriculum development can play a role in preparing future psychoanalysts to participate in ongoing dialogue with colleagues in neighboring disciplines. Curriculum design can be used to encourage an interdisciplinary perspective that helps candidates think about psychoanalytic knowledge in the context of what is known in other disciplines about the functioning of mind and brain. It is possible to teach these complex matters in a way that students find accessible and useful. Exemplars taken from the curriculum designed and taught at the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research are presented, as are problems encountered with this curriculum and the lessons that have been learned.

The articles in this issue contribute to a number of lively contemporary theoretical discussions about fundamental aspects of mental life. They illustrate the powerful creativity that arises when p...

(1992). Consciousness: A brain‐centered, informational approach. Psychoanalytic Inquiry: Vol. 12, Neuroscience and Clinical Science: Toward an Integration, pp. 419-444.

In recent attempts to bring psychoanalysis into greater contact with other sciences, a number of works have explicated neural science concepts and phenomena—affect, memory, consciousness—for the psychoanalyst. These efforts have helped analysts build a more scientific foundation for their theory and practice. A related task remains—namely, to take psychoanalytic concepts and see how they relate to other sciences. The concept of identification has a long history in psychoanalytic theory. It is seen in parent-child interactions, in teaching and mentoring relationships, and in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Neuropsychology and evolutionary biology have explored the phylogenetic precursors of identification, while genetics and infant observation provide insights into individual processes of identification. Finally, neuroscience, particularly recent studies of mirror neurons, offers information about the biological mechanisms of imitation and the relationship of imitation to identification. Findings from these sciences are presented in an effort to further the psychoanalytic understanding of identification, especially its biological underpinnings.