A Neuropsychoanalytic Perspective: What is Depression for?

Authors

  • Mark Solms

Abstract

As a psychoanalyst, I believe that conscious mental phenomena (such as feelings) are not epiphenomenal to the workings of the brain. Feelings evolved for good biological reasons; they make specific, concrete contributions to (unconscious) brain functioning. Notwithstanding all the philosophical complexities (see Solms 1997) the interactions between these consciousness and unconscious functions are, in my view, causal interactions. That is to say, feelings matter; they do something. The tendency of modern neuroscientists (and biological psychiatrists) to marginalize consciousness in relation to how the brain works is likely to lead them badly astray. Here I illustrate this view by trying to address the question: what is depression for?

Author Biography

Mark Solms

Born in Namibia and educated in South Africa. He trained first in neuroscience and then in psychoanalysis (at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London). He has spent his professional life trying to bridge the considerable gap between these two disciplines. He currently occupies the chair in Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and is president of the South African Psychoanalytic Association. He is best known for his research into the brain mechanisms of dreaming and for his Freud scholarship.

Downloads

Published

2011-06-07

How to Cite

Solms, M. (2011). A Neuropsychoanalytic Perspective: What is Depression for?. Psychotherapie-Wissenschaft, 1(2), 85–93. Retrieved from https://psychotherapie-wissenschaft.info/article/view/226

Issue

Vol. 1 No. 2 (2011): Trauer

Section

Special Issue

License

This journal provides open access to its content in accordance with the basic premise that the free public availability of research benefits the exchange of knowledge throughout the world.

Authors wishing to publish in this journal agree to the following:

  1. The author/s retain/s the copyrights and consent/s to initial publication of the work in the journal under a Creative Commons Attribution licence, which allows third parties to use the work by citing the name/s of the author/s and this journal as initial publisher (in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 DE-Licence).
  1. The author/s can enter into additional contracts for the non-exclusive distribution (e.g. publish in a collection or book) of the version published in the journal, if the journal is cited as initial publisher.