Psychodynamics and Cognition outlines ways that methods and ideas from cognitive and information science can be used to reformulate psychoanalytic concepts and to test them outside the psychoanalytic situation. Based on a 1984 conference sponsored by the Health Program of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, this book presents a series of papers by distinguished scholars in psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics.
This book proposes a novel method of combining the current approaches to counselling and psychotherapy into one coherent framework. The authors argue that the cognitive behavioural tradition (largely focused on thought patterns) and the psychodynamic approach (centred on the client’s experience and relationships), can be successfully integrated with insights from cognitive neuroscience, to form a fruitful synthesis. In doing so they provide a perspective that will enable practitioners to more fully appreciate each client’s unique inner world, based on their individual history and environment. The authors point towards the brain’s innate ability to understand and learn from experience so as to direct the growth of that inner world. This book elaborates a method of tapping into this innate growth potential, so as to help clients move forward when they have become trapped in non-productive patterns or mental stalemates. It will provide fresh insights and a valuable resource for counselling psychologists, counsellors and psychotherapists, as well as for academics and students in these fields.
The notion of an unconscious mental life has been subject to debate for over a century. Psychodynamic practitioners generally understand clients' consciously experienced symptoms to reflect conflict within an unconscious realm; cognitive psychologists, on the other hand, doubt the validity of this psychodynamic understanding of unconscious processes. This innovative volume attempts to bridge the theoretical gulf between the two approaches by providing objective evidence for unconscious conflict in psychopathology. Integrating psychodynamic, cognitive, and neurophysiological methods, the authors have developed an experimental model using brain wave measurements that can differentiate types of unconscious processes. Meticulously researched and clearly written, the volume provides a unique synthesis of clinical and experimental findings and blazes a new pathway for the study of brain-mind interaction. Following an introduction that outlines the organization of the volume, the authors review the theoretical contexts of psychoanalysis, cognitive psychology, and psychophysiology. The research protocols are then elaborated in sections written both for specialists and for newcomers to each discipline. Chapters describe how psychoanalytically guided clinical assessment of patients leads to hypotheses about the unconscious conflict underlying a symptom, such as phobia. These hypotheses are then used to select words that will be presented subliminally, a method currently employed by cognitive psychologists to investigate unconscious aspects of perception. A new form of signal analysis is applied to obtain brain responses to the subliminal stimuli, providing an objective measurement of dynamicallyunconscious processes. Three detailed case presentations illustrate the methodological material and help bring the findings to life. Exploring the concept of an unconscious mental life in its full depth, this groundbreaking study sheds new light on the connections between psychological and neurophysiological processes. It will inform a broad interdisciplinary audience including readers in cognitive psychology, psychoanalysis, and neuropsychology.
Defending theoretical areas may be one way to cope with external impingments on clinical practice, but advancements are needed to enhance and improve the work. This text explores an approach based on applying cognitive-behaviour techniques in psychodynamic clinical practice. It aims to help understand, theoretical and practical, of the strengths and limitations of the approach, as well as how to determine when to combine approaches when treating couples, children, adolescents, older adults, even cases of abuse and chemical dependency.
Can the psychodynamics of the mind be correlated with neurodynamic processes in the brain? The book revisits a question that scientists and psychoanalysts have been asking for more than a century. It brings together experts from Psychology, Psychoanalysis, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Neurology to consider this question.
Although psychoanalytic concepts underlie most forms of psychotherapy practiced today, the basic Freudian theory of mind the metapsychology does not mesh with current scientific views in psychology and related fields. As a result, despite its many strengths, psychoanalysis has been relegated to the periphery by clinicians and researchers alike. Filling a significant void, this book from cognitive scientist and psychoanalytic researcher Wilma Bucci proposes a new model of psychological organization that integrates psychoanalytic theory with the investigation of mental processes. Solidly rooted in current cognitive science, multiple code theory recognizes the focus on meanings and motives that is intrinsic to psychoanalytic clinical work. The theory points to parallel functions underlying free association and dreams, as well as conceptual development in children and creative work in sciences and the arts, and provides a strong foundation for empirical research on the psychoanalytic treatment process.
Can a worthwhile exchange be set up between the seemingly opposing viewpoints of psychoanalytic therapy and cognitive science? Stein and the other contributing authors of Cognitive Science and the Unconscious say yes. In fact, it is their contention that such an interchange of theory and method -- combining the theoretical clarity and empirical rigor of cognitive science with the richness and complexity of clinical work -- holds the promise of enriching both disciplines. The concept of unconsciousness, as variously conceived by psychoanalysis ("The Unconscious") and cognitive science ("unconscious processing"), is the reference point of this dialogue. Written by a distinguished group of researchers and clinicians, this volume examines those aspects of the unconscious mind most relevant to the psychiatric practitioner, including unconscious processing of affective and traumatic experience, unconscious mechanisms in dissociative states and disorders, and cognitive approaches to dreaming and repression. Although cognitive psychology forms the backbone of the book, many of the chapters illuminate relevant work from the fields of artificial intelligence, linguistics, and biology.
Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self articulates in new ways the essential features and most recent extensions of Paul Wachtel's powerfully integrative theory of cyclical psychodynamics. Wachtel is widely regarded as the leading advocate for integrative thinking in personality theory and the theory and practice of psychotherapy. He is a contributor to cutting edge thought in the realm of relational psychoanalysis and to highlighting the ways in which the relational point of view provides especially fertile ground for integrating psychoanalytic insights with the ideas and methods of other theoretical and therapeutic orientations. In this book, Wachtel extends his integration of psychoanalytic, cognitive-behavioral, systemic, and experiential viewpoints to examine closely the nature of the inner world of subjectivity, its relation to the transactional world of daily life experiences, and the impact on both the larger social and cultural forces that both shape and are shaped by individual experience. Here, he discusses in a uniquely comprehensive fashiong the subtleties of the clinical interaction, the findings of systematic research, and the role of social, economic, and historical forces in our lives. The chapters in this book help to transcend the tunnel vision that can lead therapists of different orientations to ignore the important discoveries and innovations from competing approaches. Explicating the pervasive role of vicious circles and self-fulfilling prophecies in our lives, Cyclical Psychodynamics and the Contextual Self shows how deeply intertwined the subjective, the intersubjective, and the cultural realms are, and points to new pathways to therapeutic and social change. Both a theoretical tour de force and an immensely practical guide to clinical practice, this book will be essential reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and students of human behavior of all backgrounds and theoretical orientations.
