Mark argues psychoanalysis can be a catalyst for neuroscientific investigation, Heather argues that such catalytic properties are not due to the validity of Freudian concepts but because there is loose crossover in their data subjects (i.e. brains). Freud created myths of the mind where neurology created facts of the brain. I am a psychotherapist and would say that in modern psychotherapy we take theories to be useful rather than truthful, and useful based on outcome data. Heather is correct that since the 90s we discovered that most therapeutic models are effective but not because of truth claims but because of their role in building relationships. Relationships are healing.
Psychoanalysis seems like spirituality in cultures where people have a strong dependence on spirituality. In other words a displaced form of spirituality. So goes the theory of transference. But what about people with a strong secular state culture like France? And indeed it's there that Freud's theories found a proper systematic application as well as foundation. I am thinking about Jacques Lacan. But
Your comments about Spirituality are not Freudians, but Jungians. Many Jungians are also Christians, as far as I have observed over many years.@sarbajitghosh5244
Stickgold: "They didn't even refer to Freud! They must not really be drawing upon psychoanalytic theory." "Suggestion: Stop referring to Freud!" A brilliant neuroscientist he may be, but Stickgold has a clear axe to grind here, and said grinding generates much more heat than light.
All Mark & company are saying is to take some of these things into account. Neuroscience beginnings simply cannot ignore all that has gone before & claim their beginnings are all that they should be building on. What hubris his opponents are showing, for shame.
That's an interesting observation because I got the same impression. I was quite disappointed by the somewhat arrogant tone coming from the one side - as if neuroscience developed in a vacuum.
From a layperson's point of view, the neuroscientists who spoke sounded arrogant and sarcastic. I met a few cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists in my life, and they shared the same trait.
They are completely removed from reality! They know nothing outside their narrow fields of expertise. People like them get Nobel prizes for inventing things like lobotomy, btw. I watched a series of 6 lectures by Michael Gazaniga and though he's far more important than any of them the lectures were quite pleasing.
The neuroscientists against psychoanalysis here miss the fact that the brain hypothesis (I.e. that the brain produces mind) is also a belief; particularly the belief in philosophical materialism. There are millions of prescriptions of anti-depressants in the US, and no signs that depression is decreasing.
Physicalism, really, rather than materialism. And physicalism tbh is obviously correct. And the apparent efficacy or otherwise of antidepressants at population level tells us precisely nothing about the correctness or otherwise of physicalism.
@@QuinefanI think the efficacy (or not) of anti-depressants tells something about that explanatory power of physicalism. I think the idea that ‘mental illness’ is a disease of the brain that can be treated by manipulating neurotransmitters is rooted in physicalist assumptions. How is physicalism obviously correct?
@@QuinefanThe neurochemical hypothesis is rooted in physicalist assumptions. If it’s not very efficacious in treating ‘mental illness’ I would say it weakens the explanatory power of physicalism. How is physicalism obviously correct?
@@Quinefantreatments of mental illness are based on theoretical hypotheses, and further contain ontological assumptions. “Believing in magic” sounds like dismissive hand waving to me
“I spent 13 years at NIMH really pushing on the neuroscience and genetics of mental disorders, and when I look back on that I realize that while I think I succeeded at getting lots of really cool papers published by cool scientists at fairly large costs-I think $20 billion-I don’t think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness.” = Thomas Insel
As an undergraduate senior, I am majoring in pharmacy and psychology. To select a suitable postgraduate programme, I watched this debate. Conflict is something I have experienced all the time, and it is also inevitable, such as the debates between pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy; Chinese medicine and Western medicine, and different ideologies. In fact, in my opinion, the significance of discussing the opposition and relevance between cognitive neuroscience and psychodynamic is to help students or professionals in various fields better understand their own work and other fields. I realize that specializing in a field will put a shackle on me, but I have to make a choice. If I can't completely integrate different schools at the beginning, I would like to master some skills and totally understand one style of thinking at first.
To hear more from Mark - I was lucky enough to interview him here ua-cam.com/video/lcrxdHOVLQQ/v-deo.html for @Sententism. Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
The arguments against psychoanalysis, I find, are typically by folks who have either a poor understanding or just a very outdated understanding of analysis (c'mon, literal interpretations of Freud?). The same straw man arguments have been presented for years, invariably by academics.
Psychoanalysis is not an academic discipline. It is, at the best of times, an artform that the therapist is good at. At the worst of times the therapist is a charlatan.
@@lepidoptera9337 Nope, there is plenty of room in the academy for diverse areas of study, even those we don't personally value. Perhaps it should be reclassified as part of Humanities or Philosophy or Hermeneutics.
@@Me_ThatsWho You may want to read up on the definition of science (which is what we are talking about here, if I read the title of this video correctly). Psychoanalysis does not fall under that. It doesn't have to. What it does have to do is help people. I am not sure I want to see it in the humanities, either. I certainly don't want to see it under philosophy. Philosophy is bullshit and good psychoanalysis is not. It's a therapeutic discipline. Let's call it physical therapy for the mind. It tries to make minds more flexible. It tries to give them more options to move out of their own stress positions that cause pain.
@@lepidoptera9337 You make some good points. However, I do think it's more than just another therapeutic discipline. That would be oversimplifying things quite a bit regarding a discipline that revolutionized the modern conception of the mind. Many scholars have written as much. Even if one regards it as nothing more than a therapeutic discipline, it still needs more empirical investigation. The best place to do that is in the Academy. We can't do that if there's no department for it. Part of the problem is that analysis has always had an independent and sometimes a hostile relationship with the Academy (for lots of historical reasons). That's why it set up its own institutes for training, study, etc.
@@Me_ThatsWho Psychoanalysis can't tell us anything about the higher functions of the human mind, like logical thinking. It is mostly concerned with emotional states that are not under control of the conscious, reasoning person. It tries to liberate us from false learned reflexes that cause pain and suffering. It is also not value-free like good science would be. Psychoanalysis tries to make a person happier, better, more functional. Science observes but psychoanalysis has active goals. It wants to change its subjects, not merely understand them.
Haven’t got to the debate ,but the lack of both historical contextual understanding as well as pure bad logic !!! by is S n B is unreal .To say that their is little interest or publications by neuroscientists on psychoanalysis as proof of its weakness is shocking logic .There is more poor thinking .And these are the’ cream ‘ of society .Maybe philosophical logic should be a part of any undergrad course !!!! Mike
Wonderful debate. As a closing remark: how come there is so much discussion of Freud out of all psychoanalysts? Why don't we speak of Lacan, Jung, Adler, Klein, Anna Freud, Winnicott, Erik Erikson, Kernberg and so on?
AFAIK, Psychoanalysis is Freudian Analysis. The term is, however, used with broader or narrower scopes depending on where you live, though. I know for sure that Jung called his method "Therapy".
Yes. It's all in the hard question of consciousness, as Mark has explored deeply and expounded expertly in other videos that explain the mechanism that allows consciousness. What creates consciousness from unconsciousness? It's a neurological event.
My mother stopped breast feeding me after 2 weeks. She lied about this to me for 50 years. When in psychoanalysis I had 3 dreams of an infant which verifies this experience. This baby was having difficulty finding her thumb. There were two other dreams in this series. I am wanting to find an infant psychoanalyst who can give me further insight as to why I had these dreams. At the time of these dreams I was in my mid twenties, not knowing that I had been removed from access to my mother's breast.
If psychoanalysis was more accessible I believe you would see more discourse within the neuroscience framework. CBT and modern therapeutic models are brief, fundable, and easier mapped to modern methods of "science". Psychotherapy is intricate, subjective, and emergent. Our modern day scientific method is slow, and political. Disheartened by neuroscientists taking this perspective, how much money did the NIH spend on neuroscience research? How much of this research translated to better mental health outcomes for day to day folks?
Neuroscience studies the fiscal part of the brain, psychoanalysis studies the abstract part. This debate is sort of like debating filosophy vs science. Scientists often have issues with abstract thinking and they want to reduce everything to empirical physical data, they see theories as religion (they do have a point). Both paths are useful and the combined application would provide astonishing results and advancements.
Scientists do not have a problem with abstract thinking. In any are of science you can publish a purely hypothetical paper. What you can't do is call your hypothesis a law, or a scientific proof. You have to wait for the experiments to include that in the scientific status of a proof. If your field is completely based on speculations, it is philosophy, not science.
The problems of neuroscientists aproach to psychoanalysis are two: 1- they forget that they are departing from a cartesian cientific method of evidence and they forget that psychoanalisis is a cience, but it has to have holes in it to work, because as Lacan said, " psycoanalise est une science du langage habitée par le sujet (le parlétre)". So, it is a science, but its methot is fluid because "le sujet" is fluid and can't be measured because language and culture can't be measured by cartesian methods only by "le discurse". Psychoanalysis is in the field of literature, language and philosophy (Freud won a Goethe prize of literature and Herold Bloom puts him in the position of occidental canon, toguether with Shakespeare), not in the hard sciences. Those guys are still discussing Freud (witch demonstrate that they don't know Shit about psychoanalisys) when we have thousands of new theories in psychoanalysis that are post freudian and way more applicable to the culture theese days, like Laplanche, Onfray, Klein, Lacan, Zizek, Dunker, Ronell, Rolnik, Safatle, Kehl, Calligaris, Derrida, Deleuze, Roudinesco, Mezan, Guattari, and etc etc etc. Psychoanalysis is a tool to deal with the "civilization and its discontents" as old Freud said, and civilization changes toguether with culture, so good luck finding your evidence. 2- hard sciences people are very good at measuring the brain, finding where is where and what produces what, witch is amazing, but this doesn't help a bit when we are talking about the existential part of human beeings. You can say my brain makes X,Y and Z enzyms and produces any kind of stuff, give me a prozac, and i won't be any better, it won't help changing my life and it will only put me in a lethargic state. Ask 60% of the american population that are on prozac if they are any better. Leave the humanistic sciences (witch psychoanalysis is) to the humanistics. Heiddegger was right all along. Go to your lab and keep measuring cells, you're better off this debate.
@@lepidoptera9337 worth noting that Intensive Short Term Psychodynamic therapy is the most effective form of therapy and the most evidence backed. Psychoanalysis has been used responsibly and effectively
@@Jooshyb No doubt, but it's not science by any useful definition of the word science. Science is the rational explanation of nature. The aim of psychotherapy is to help people, it is not to explain how the minds of people work. It is mental caregiving. Ideally it is done using evidence and maybe even scientific methods, but that alone is not sufficient to make it a scientific discipline.
If thee people needed to treat themselves, they could never do it. Without Freud they may patch up their clients but they will never cure them. Until doctors understand their own unconscious they will continue to play at doctoring and feel inadequate doing so.
Penis envy is only one special case. Freud’s other work is totally underrated as Mark says. Dissing & dismissing Freud as a quack is disingenuous, especially in the historical context. Odd than even she admits it.
Ms. Berlin sounds quite arrogant and also ignorant. Just bc psychoanalysis doesnt follow the scientific method because it cant by definition and because of the nature of its subject matter, doesnt mean it isnt useful. She thinks that neuroscience is superior because it uses the scientific method. Thats great but just because you can looks at structures of the brain and infer function doesn't mean you know what they do or why they do it. You cant explain why someone engages in certain patters of behavior just by looking at what part of their brain lights up when they engage in those patters. Neuroscientists always do this. The brain is still a black box that we're hypothesizing about. Nothing about it has been proved with full certainty. Also, psychoanaylsis is the study of subjectivity and individual experiences. As such, its not open to the universal judgements.
At the same time Freud constantly pointed towards the need for scientifc analysis into his theories. In other words he desperately wanted to work using the scientific method but the possibilities at that time were so limited. They were only discovering the neuron to begin with. For me the arrogance also stems from pretending neuroscience as a field developed in a vaccum and not precicely because of the practical work of people like Freud.
1:53:26 That dud nailed it! Freudian thought is extremely embedded particularly in American culture. It's so unconsciously embedded that even though most people think Freud argued that an open and experimental sex life was the way to healhy mental condition, the real idea of restraint (when restraint was the norm) permeates the culture ... the evidence is the many shorts we can watch on several episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. But ... restraint is a thing of the past, isn't it? Yes! But the norm isn't restraint anymore, is it? Freud argued that one should live like society expected one to live - that's his recipe for a happy life. Well ... I know very very little about this stuff ... I do think it important the genealogy of ideas and Freud did have some groundbreaking ones. Yes, before Newton there was Kepler, before Darwin there was Wallace and before Freud there were Ferenczi and Mesmer. I did my share of analysis and therapy ... did not like Freud at all. Those four people, however, presented the most boring masturbation session I've ever seen! Luckily the amateurs from the crowd showed some authentic hornyness. Libido, as that former pupil of Freud's (who often complained about the Viennese's doctor lack of scientific rigor) used to say: "Libido isn't about sex - it's about thinking". And now, ladies and gentlemen, a filthy libidinous man ... because only a filthy horny man could spend his whole life not caring about the fact his parents named him Hilary: ua-cam.com/video/Oh99l4fOwsY/v-deo.html
I might not know much about either of these topics and I stumbled upon this video on accident, but that first question had me like “just ask the damn question!”.
Of course it’s relevant. Some folk are just too damned sensitive! LOL. All Mark is saying is that convergence & integration are - and should be - significant going forward.
I never have had dreams of penis envy, although I was aware of not having a penis and that little girls were different from little boys. This was simply an acceptable reality. There are many aspects of Freudian theory that I do not accept.
Presumptive figures of how a child piles a group pf colored blocs can be hypothetically explained. But what if the next time the child makes another combination? Cause presumes outcomes and psychoanalysis imposes rather than discovering its own version pof causality.
I wonder if any of these neuroscience professionals have studied their personal dreams - I sincerely doubt that they've had enough interest or curiosity to do so. They are talking without knowledge or evidence.
I think it’s a question of hierarchy...psychoanalysis is a clinical method that can be utilized within neuroscience. But neuroscience is not a method that can be used within psychoanalysis. Thus, neuroscience is a contemporary, broader school of thought to which psychoanalysis belongs. It is simply the case that due to modernity, neuroscience has absorbed psychoanalysis as one form (among others) that aids the study of mind and brain. To me, it’s that simple.
I don't think that there is a hierarchy because I think they are describing or attempting to do very different things and even if there is overlap it is not on the same level - or very rarely. In a way i think that this is far more fruitful potentially than if there was a hierarchy as there are many and unexpected possibilities for information to cross inform the other discipline.
@@mikelipschitz7281 do you know, a year after writing this answer to you above, and having now almost finished reading Interpretation of Dreams during pandemic lockdown with my study group (we’re on Chapter 7: Regression now), I would revise my answer a bit.I think you’re right - the meta-psychical aspects of Freudian theory are describing something different to anatomical aspects of brain, and adds a richness that neuroscience cannot easily measure. I’m still learning, I think it’s fascinating to learn from both important disciplines - neuroscience and psychoanalysis (in no particular order).
I asked GPT: "In one debate, people debated "is X relevant to Y", but I thought that this sounded like an odd criticism, for one thing since it didn't fix very many definite questions and for another since it seemed potentially prejudiced. What are alternatives (verbs, please) for relevant, by which one field of inquiry or body of experts could help with another?" GPT says: When discussing how one field of inquiry or body of experts could assist or be of use to another, the term "relevant" indeed may feel too broad or vague, and in some contexts, it might seem insufficient to capture the depth of potential contribution. Here are alternative verbs that can describe the relationship or contribution more specifically and vividly: Inform - to provide data, insights, or knowledge that can shape understanding or decision-making in another field. Enhance - to improve or augment the quality, value, or effectiveness of work in another domain. Support - to offer backing, evidence, or foundation to theories, practices, or methodologies in another area. Enrich - to add value, depth, or complexity to another field's perspectives or approaches. Influence - to have an impact on the direction, development, or methodologies of another discipline. Integrate - to combine or incorporate insights or methodologies seamlessly into another field. Contribute to - to provide something beneficial, leading to improvement or advancement in another area. Intersect with - to have points of commonality or overlap that can be explored for mutual benefit. Collaborate with - to work jointly on an activity or project, emphasizing the cooperative effort across disciplines. Complement - to fill in gaps or add missing elements in another field, enhancing its completeness or effectiveness. Facilitate - to make a process or change easier or more possible in another field through expertise or resources. Inspire - to stimulate new ideas, approaches, or innovations in another discipline. Translate - to adapt or convert findings, theories, or practices into a form that is useful and applicable in another field. Bridge - to connect and serve as a link between different areas of expertise, facilitating exchange and synergy. Advance - to push forward, accelerating progress or innovation in another field through new insights or technologies. These alternatives not only offer a richer vocabulary to describe inter-disciplinary contributions but also help in articulating the specific nature of the impact or assistance provided, avoiding potential vagueness or prejudice associated with the term "relevant".
The story Solms told of his patient with confabulatory amnesia, was quite amazing but contained no psychoanalytic concept application. He just explained how a conversation with acute attention paid to its details and dynamic can inform the treatment, but how was that psychoanalysis? Did Freud invent dialogue with patients? Did Oedipus aid Korsakoff, did it resolve or distort or molest it? glad Robert Stickgold brought this up
You think because he didn't reference any of the touchstones (or one might even say, 'stereotypes') of 'textbook Freudianism' (castration anxiety, dream interpretation, tripartite model of the psyche, etc.) that there was 'no psychoanalytic concept application'? Solms was quite clear about what aspect of psychoanalysis he /was/ applying: namely, attending to the subjective experiences of the patient, being vigilant about the emergence of themes that emerge, and undertaking to interpret those themes. This is certainly not something that the psychoanalysts that emerge, nor is it the exclusive domain of psychoanalysts today, but it is something that renders it distinct from cognitive, behavioural, or neurological approaches. You have committed the same error as Stackgold here in thinking that because Mark's clinical vignette/published work does not conform to your very-impoverished understanding of what constitutes psychoanalysis, that he has abandoned it as either a conceptual framework or a modality of treatment, and instead only continues to invoke psychoanalysis as a kind of symbol devoid of content. This would be akin to someone who doesn't know anything about classical music arguing that Liszt abandoned classical music when he wrote Bagatelle sans tonalite because it lacks a tonal centre or that a psychologist is not really practicing psychotherapy if they don't employ operant conditioning with every/any of their patients.
@@purgatoriprytania5382 yes he didn't reference those touchstones because they are ridiculous and actually hamper attending to the subjective experience of the patient, and being vigilant about possible themes emerging, is a far cry from imposing Freudian oedipal themes on the words uttered, your analogy with classical music is superfluous, nothing I wrote is akin to that
@@sacredsoma Again, if you're arguing-and I'm not sure that you are even launching an argument, or just embarking on an unfocused screed against whatever it is you imagine psychoanalysis to be about-that not referencing those touchstones in Freud's works means you're not doing psychoanalysis then it is completely analogous to the two examples I utilised in my response. You simply do not know what your'e talking about, as is clear from your insinuation that psychoanalysis is about 'imposing themes' on the subjective experiences of the patients that one works with. The fact of the matter is that oedipal themes *do* emerge in the discourse and recollected experiences of some patients, but any good analyst-or psychotherapist in general-does not embark upon a course of treatment by seeking to hammer the patient's utterances into shapes so that they neatly fit the moulds of the different complexes enumerated by Freud. Freud himself cautioned against approaching interpretation this way, but given that you haven't read Freud, let-alone any of the dozens of theorists who followed in his wake, I suppose can't be expected to know anything beyond the usual cliches.
@@purgatoriprytania5382 OK I have read Freud and I despised it. You write that " The fact of the matter is that oedipal themes do emerge in the discourse and recollected experiences of some patients." OK I take that as a statement of faith. I don't share that faith and just as it is pointless convincing a Muslim of the absurdities of that religion, I will not urge you to read Borch-Jacobsen's "The Freud Files", or the numerous works by Frederick Crews on the Viennese witch doctor.
Psychoanalysis fails the replicability test, and it isn’t predictive. Knowing about psychoanalysis is about as useful in predicting behavior as knowledge of poetry. The fact that people believe they can read minds by psychoanalysis should be viewed as being as silly as claims of psychic powers. Not science, therapeutic? Maybe in some cases. But not scientific.
Then why does it work? "Knowing about psychoanalysis is about as useful in predicting behavior as knowledge of poetry." You know that psychoanalysis actually derives a lot from arts, and its seems to be really useful. Poetry is people expressing their subjective experience.
@@Nobody-Nowhere yes and just like poetry and the arts, each analysis is completely unconnected to all previous psychoanalysis you have done. Each patient must be handled subjectively, hard rules cannot be applied without layers upon layers of caveat, and teaching someone the structure of psychoanalytics won’t ensure they can competently psychoanalyze. It is more the combination of oratory talent, intuition and interpersonal relationship building. With a veneer of neuropathological theory binding the whole thing together. Neuroscience is highly relevant to a psychoanalyst but psychoanalysis is completely irrelevant to a neurobiologist or cognitive neuroscientist. Both of those are hard sciences with predictive power, ie: if I retard your dopamine reuptake system it will raise your self reported mood and help to stabilize it. I can make a hypothesis I can test it experimentally in a very concrete way and once I have come to a firm conclusion I can apply the new theory to any patient and get approximately the same results, moreover I can teach the theory to other people in the field and they can apply my theory to their cases and they will also get approximately the same results. And if they don’t get the same results they will review my own findings with their results show there is not a significant reproducibility of my results and then we can start reducing possible causes of that through very rigorous well measured experimental controls. If I say “your dreams about being naked in a bus with an older woman are caused by an trauma experienced in the oral phase of development and it’s really a sign that you have developed an oedipal complex and want to have sex with your mother.” I cant do any of things above. There isn’t even a hard and fast definition for what the oral phase is? the edges are very blurry, what is an oedipal complex and what isn’t exactly? Why would trauma sublimate and then reappear years later in completely unrelated behavioral patterns? Can we predict with high certainty what patterns will develope based on the trauma experienced by a youth and use that prediction to effectively prevent the maladaptive coping mechanisms from occurring? Youre right in that sometimes psychoanalysis works, just like grief counseling sometimes works, just like hypnosis to stop smoking sometimes works. But when exposed to the rigor of the empirical model, they all fall apart and all though we can certainly say that these are all worthwhile professions and worth studying. They are not science, and the patterns noticed by psychologists shouldnt inform the decisions of anyone but other psychologists. And to clarify behavioral science, the sort of skinnerian black box model does pass most of the tests of empiricism. But it was a reaction to and denunciation of psychoanalysis by psychologists who basically made all the points i just did 60 years ago or so. Psychoanalysis strictly the application of principles (some based in science some not) in a dialectic methodology employed in conversations between a psychologists and a client.
@@rexluna5430 "teaching someone the structure of psychoanalytics won’t ensure they can competently psychoanalyze" Not all car mechanics are good car mechanics, and not all doctors are good doctors. Nothing out of the ordinary here. A good psychoanalyst needs to have a personality that suits the craft. Two totally different disciplines, one studies the mind other the brain. Also, there are no " veneer of neuropathological theory " in psychoanalysis, as it studies the mind.. not the brain. "if I retard your dopamine reuptake system it will raise your self reported mood and help to stabilize it" I dont think it works like that, for example SSRI meds have wide range of effect on different people. "There isn’t even a hard and fast definition for what the oral phase is? the edges are very blurry, what is an oedipal complex and what isn’t exactly? " Maybe you should study it, to understand it? It sounds more like you want simple easily defined answers. But what if the mind does not work like that? What if its chaotic in nature, constantly changing and in constant motion? You need for simple predefined clear cut answer does not mean that the universe or the mind operates like that.
@@rexluna5430 Also, if you are interested in a more structured psychoanalysis you might be interested in transference focused psychotherapy, that Otto Kernberg developed.
@@Nobody-Nowhere where does the mind come from? What is it? Quantify the mind for me clearly in a way that doesn’t involve simile or metaphor or make any vague inferences. Tell me what is this mind, what is it’s origin and what does it do? If you can do that with scientific rigor without crossing into metaphysical abstraction or requiring some sort of leap of faith I will reconsider whether or not the concept of mind is even relevant to the topic of science.
Mark argues psychoanalysis can be a catalyst for neuroscientific investigation, Heather argues that such catalytic properties are not due to the validity of Freudian concepts but because there is loose crossover in their data subjects (i.e. brains). Freud created myths of the mind where neurology created facts of the brain. I am a psychotherapist and would say that in modern psychotherapy we take theories to be useful rather than truthful, and useful based on outcome data. Heather is correct that since the 90s we discovered that most therapeutic models are effective but not because of truth claims but because of their role in building relationships. Relationships are healing.
Psychoanalysis seems like spirituality in cultures where people have a strong dependence on spirituality. In other words a displaced form of spirituality. So goes the theory of transference.
But what about people with a strong secular state culture like France? And indeed it's there that Freud's theories found a proper systematic application as well as foundation. I am thinking about Jacques Lacan.
But
Your comments about Spirituality are not Freudians, but Jungians. Many Jungians are also Christians, as far as I have observed over many years.@sarbajitghosh5244
Stickgold: "They didn't even refer to Freud! They must not really be drawing upon psychoanalytic theory." "Suggestion: Stop referring to Freud!" A brilliant neuroscientist he may be, but Stickgold has a clear axe to grind here, and said grinding generates much more heat than light.
All Mark & company are saying is to take some of these things into account. Neuroscience beginnings simply cannot ignore all that has gone before & claim their beginnings are all that they should be building on. What hubris his opponents are showing, for shame.
That's an interesting observation because I got the same impression. I was quite disappointed by the somewhat arrogant tone coming from the one side - as if neuroscience developed in a vacuum.
From a layperson's point of view, the neuroscientists who spoke sounded arrogant and sarcastic. I met a few cognitive psychologists and neuroscientists in my life, and they shared the same trait.
Not to mention Berlin described psychoanalytic theory about as well as an undergraduate, and that’s being generous!
They are completely removed from reality! They know nothing outside their narrow fields of expertise. People like them get Nobel prizes for inventing things like lobotomy, btw. I watched a series of 6 lectures by Michael Gazaniga and though he's far more important than any of them the lectures were quite pleasing.
@@baileywolfs9260 I know nothing about psychoanalysis and I also noted her knowledge on the subject was somewhat narrow.
The neuroscientists against psychoanalysis here miss the fact that the brain hypothesis (I.e. that the brain produces mind) is also a belief; particularly the belief in philosophical materialism. There are millions of prescriptions of anti-depressants in the US, and no signs that depression is decreasing.
Physicalism, really, rather than materialism.
And physicalism tbh is obviously correct.
And the apparent efficacy or otherwise of antidepressants at population level tells us precisely nothing about the correctness or otherwise of physicalism.
@@QuinefanI think the efficacy (or not) of anti-depressants tells something about that explanatory power of physicalism. I think the idea that ‘mental illness’ is a disease of the brain that can be treated by manipulating neurotransmitters is rooted in physicalist assumptions.
How is physicalism obviously correct?
@@QuinefanThe neurochemical hypothesis is rooted in physicalist assumptions. If it’s not very efficacious in treating ‘mental illness’ I would say it weakens the explanatory power of physicalism.
How is physicalism obviously correct?
@@CJ-cd5cd Because believing in magic is obviously foolish.
Hypotheses don't treat 'mental illness'. That's not what hypotheses are for.
@@Quinefantreatments of mental illness are based on theoretical hypotheses, and further contain ontological assumptions.
“Believing in magic” sounds like dismissive hand waving to me
“I spent 13 years at NIMH really pushing on the neuroscience and genetics of mental disorders, and when I look back on that I realize that while I think I succeeded at getting lots of really cool papers published by cool scientists at fairly large costs-I think $20 billion-I don’t think we moved the needle in reducing suicide, reducing hospitalizations, improving recovery for the tens of millions of people who have mental illness.” = Thomas Insel
As an undergraduate senior, I am majoring in pharmacy and psychology. To select a suitable postgraduate programme, I watched this debate. Conflict is something I have experienced all the time, and it is also inevitable, such as the debates between pharmacotherapy and psychotherapy; Chinese medicine and Western medicine, and different ideologies. In fact, in my opinion, the significance of discussing the opposition and relevance between cognitive neuroscience and psychodynamic is to help students or professionals in various fields better understand their own work and other fields. I realize that specializing in a field will put a shackle on me, but I have to make a choice. If I can't completely integrate different schools at the beginning, I would like to master some skills and totally understand one style of thinking at first.
Either you can dread becoming “shackled” to a speciality or you can aspire to become an expert in it.
Mark up there sweating doing the lord's work
To hear more from Mark - I was lucky enough to interview him here ua-cam.com/video/lcrxdHOVLQQ/v-deo.html for @Sententism. Hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.
Very interesting arguments by Solms and Alberni. Thank you!
The arguments against psychoanalysis, I find, are typically by folks who have either a poor understanding or just a very outdated understanding of analysis (c'mon, literal interpretations of Freud?). The same straw man arguments have been presented for years, invariably by academics.
Psychoanalysis is not an academic discipline. It is, at the best of times, an artform that the therapist is good at. At the worst of times the therapist is a charlatan.
@@lepidoptera9337 Nope, there is plenty of room in the academy for diverse areas of study, even those we don't personally value. Perhaps it should be reclassified as part of Humanities or Philosophy or Hermeneutics.
@@Me_ThatsWho You may want to read up on the definition of science (which is what we are talking about here, if I read the title of this video correctly). Psychoanalysis does not fall under that. It doesn't have to. What it does have to do is help people. I am not sure I want to see it in the humanities, either. I certainly don't want to see it under philosophy. Philosophy is bullshit and good psychoanalysis is not. It's a therapeutic discipline. Let's call it physical therapy for the mind. It tries to make minds more flexible. It tries to give them more options to move out of their own stress positions that cause pain.
@@lepidoptera9337 You make some good points. However, I do think it's more than just another therapeutic discipline. That would be oversimplifying things quite a bit regarding a discipline that revolutionized the modern conception of the mind. Many scholars have written as much.
Even if one regards it as nothing more than a therapeutic discipline, it still needs more empirical investigation. The best place to do that is in the Academy. We can't do that if there's no department for it.
Part of the problem is that analysis has always had an independent and sometimes a hostile relationship with the Academy (for lots of historical reasons). That's why it set up its own institutes for training, study, etc.
@@Me_ThatsWho Psychoanalysis can't tell us anything about the higher functions of the human mind, like logical thinking. It is mostly concerned with emotional states that are not under control of the conscious, reasoning person. It tries to liberate us from false learned reflexes that cause pain and suffering. It is also not value-free like good science would be. Psychoanalysis tries to make a person happier, better, more functional. Science observes but psychoanalysis has active goals. It wants to change its subjects, not merely understand them.
Haven’t got to the debate ,but the lack of both historical contextual understanding as well as pure bad logic !!! by is S n B is unreal .To say that their is little interest or publications by neuroscientists on psychoanalysis as proof of its weakness is shocking logic .There is more poor thinking .And these are the’ cream ‘ of society .Maybe philosophical logic should be a part of any undergrad course !!!! Mike
100%.. the divide between philosophy and science that is only widening is blasphemy against god.
Wonderful debate. As a closing remark: how come there is so much discussion of Freud out of all psychoanalysts? Why don't we speak of Lacan, Jung, Adler, Klein, Anna Freud, Winnicott, Erik Erikson, Kernberg and so on?
That question was answered in the debate…
Jung and Adler are irrelevant in contemporary psychoanalysis proper.
AFAIK, Psychoanalysis is Freudian Analysis. The term is, however, used with broader or narrower scopes depending on where you live, though. I know for sure that Jung called his method "Therapy".
@@christopherhamilton3621 Do you mean I'll have to watch it again? WTH!
Yes. It's all in the hard question of consciousness, as Mark has explored deeply and expounded expertly in other videos that explain the mechanism that allows consciousness.
What creates consciousness from unconsciousness? It's a neurological event.
Great debate, thanks so much for recording and sharing it!
My mother stopped breast feeding me after 2 weeks. She lied about this to me for 50 years. When in psychoanalysis I had 3 dreams of an infant which verifies this experience. This baby was having difficulty finding her thumb. There were two other dreams in this series. I am wanting to find an infant psychoanalyst who can give me further insight as to why I had these dreams. At the time of these dreams I was in my mid twenties, not knowing that I had been removed from access to my mother's breast.
If psychoanalysis was more accessible I believe you would see more discourse within the neuroscience framework. CBT and modern therapeutic models are brief, fundable, and easier mapped to modern methods of "science". Psychotherapy is intricate, subjective, and emergent. Our modern day scientific method is slow, and political. Disheartened by neuroscientists taking this perspective, how much money did the NIH spend on neuroscience research? How much of this research translated to better mental health outcomes for day to day folks?
Neuroscience studies the fiscal part of the brain, psychoanalysis studies the abstract part.
This debate is sort of like debating filosophy vs science. Scientists often have issues with abstract thinking and they want to reduce everything to empirical physical data, they see theories as religion (they do have a point).
Both paths are useful and the combined application would provide astonishing results and advancements.
Scientists do not have a problem with abstract thinking. In any are of science you can publish a purely hypothetical paper. What you can't do is call your hypothesis a law, or a scientific proof. You have to wait for the experiments to include that in the scientific status of a proof.
If your field is completely based on speculations, it is philosophy, not science.
The problems of neuroscientists aproach to psychoanalysis are two:
1- they forget that they are departing from a cartesian cientific method of evidence and they forget that psychoanalisis is a cience, but it has to have holes in it to work, because as Lacan said, " psycoanalise est une science du langage habitée par le sujet (le parlétre)". So, it is a science, but its methot is fluid because "le sujet" is fluid and can't be measured because language and culture can't be measured by cartesian methods only by "le discurse". Psychoanalysis is in the field of literature, language and philosophy (Freud won a Goethe prize of literature and Herold Bloom puts him in the position of occidental canon, toguether with Shakespeare), not in the hard sciences. Those guys are still discussing Freud (witch demonstrate that they don't know Shit about psychoanalisys) when we have thousands of new theories in psychoanalysis that are post freudian and way more applicable to the culture theese days, like Laplanche, Onfray, Klein, Lacan, Zizek, Dunker, Ronell, Rolnik, Safatle, Kehl, Calligaris, Derrida, Deleuze, Roudinesco, Mezan, Guattari, and etc etc etc. Psychoanalysis is a tool to deal with the "civilization and its discontents" as old Freud said, and civilization changes toguether with culture, so good luck finding your evidence.
2- hard sciences people are very good at measuring the brain, finding where is where and what produces what, witch is amazing, but this doesn't help a bit when we are talking about the existential part of human beeings. You can say my brain makes X,Y and Z enzyms and produces any kind of stuff, give me a prozac, and i won't be any better, it won't help changing my life and it will only put me in a lethargic state. Ask 60% of the american population that are on prozac if they are any better. Leave the humanistic sciences (witch psychoanalysis is) to the humanistics.
Heiddegger was right all along. Go to your lab and keep measuring cells, you're better off this debate.
Psychoanalysis is not a science and never will be. It doesn't have to be. What it does have to be is responsible and effective.
It's pretty rare to find hard sciences people in the field of neuroscience tbh. The field is full of statistical errors.
@@lepidoptera9337 worth noting that Intensive Short Term Psychodynamic therapy is the most effective form of therapy and the most evidence backed. Psychoanalysis has been used responsibly and effectively
@@Jooshyb No doubt, but it's not science by any useful definition of the word science. Science is the rational explanation of nature. The aim of psychotherapy is to help people, it is not to explain how the minds of people work. It is mental caregiving. Ideally it is done using evidence and maybe even scientific methods, but that alone is not sufficient to make it a scientific discipline.
If thee people needed to treat themselves, they could never do it. Without Freud they may patch up their clients but they will never cure them. Until doctors understand their own unconscious they will continue to play at doctoring and feel inadequate doing so.
Is penis envy not relevant simply because its somehow not pleasant? How is that a argument? I dont like this, so it can't be relevant.
Of course it is relevant if you are a white guy and you have seen the black versions. Oh my...
Penis envy is only one special case. Freud’s other work is totally underrated as Mark says. Dissing & dismissing Freud as a quack is disingenuous, especially in the historical context. Odd than even she admits it.
Ms. Berlin sounds quite arrogant and also ignorant. Just bc psychoanalysis doesnt follow the scientific method because it cant by definition and because of the nature of its subject matter, doesnt mean it isnt useful. She thinks that neuroscience is superior because it uses the scientific method. Thats great but just because you can looks at structures of the brain and infer function doesn't mean you know what they do or why they do it. You cant explain why someone engages in certain patters of behavior just by looking at what part of their brain lights up when they engage in those patters. Neuroscientists always do this. The brain is still a black box that we're hypothesizing about. Nothing about it has been proved with full certainty. Also, psychoanaylsis is the study of subjectivity and individual experiences. As such, its not open to the universal judgements.
At the same time Freud constantly pointed towards the need for scientifc analysis into his theories. In other words he desperately wanted to work using the scientific method but the possibilities at that time were so limited. They were only discovering the neuron to begin with. For me the arrogance also stems from pretending neuroscience as a field developed in a vaccum and not precicely because of the practical work of people like Freud.
Sounds like you've never met an American neuroscientist, hahah. The more STEM obsessed, the more arrogant, the less humble and thoughtful.
Meanwhile, Q - What of MEDI-tation ????? thx
1:53:26 That dud nailed it! Freudian thought is extremely embedded particularly in American culture. It's so unconsciously embedded that even though most people think Freud argued that an open and experimental sex life was the way to healhy mental condition, the real idea of restraint (when restraint was the norm) permeates the culture ... the evidence is the many shorts we can watch on several episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. But ... restraint is a thing of the past, isn't it? Yes! But the norm isn't restraint anymore, is it? Freud argued that one should live like society expected one to live - that's his recipe for a happy life.
Well ... I know very very little about this stuff ... I do think it important the genealogy of ideas and Freud did have some groundbreaking ones. Yes, before Newton there was Kepler, before Darwin there was Wallace and before Freud there were Ferenczi and Mesmer. I did my share of analysis and therapy ... did not like Freud at all.
Those four people, however, presented the most boring masturbation session I've ever seen! Luckily the amateurs from the crowd showed some authentic hornyness. Libido, as that former pupil of Freud's (who often complained about the Viennese's doctor lack of scientific rigor) used to say: "Libido isn't about sex - it's about thinking".
And now, ladies and gentlemen, a filthy libidinous man ... because only a filthy horny man could spend his whole life not caring about the fact his parents named him Hilary:
ua-cam.com/video/Oh99l4fOwsY/v-deo.html
I might not know much about either of these topics and I stumbled upon this video on accident, but that first question had me like “just ask the damn question!”.
Of course it’s relevant. Some folk are just too damned sensitive! LOL. All Mark is saying is that convergence & integration are - and should be - significant going forward.
I feel that it makes life way more interesting and fun. Something intellectuals seem to want to dismiss
Some ppl trying to monopolize science. Despicable.
Thanks, great debate!
I never have had dreams of penis envy, although I was aware of not having a penis and that little girls were different from little boys. This was simply an acceptable reality. There are many aspects of Freudian theory that I do not accept.
Presumptive figures of how a child piles a group pf colored blocs can be hypothetically explained. But what if the next time the child makes another combination? Cause presumes outcomes and psychoanalysis imposes rather than discovering its own version pof causality.
I wonder if any of these neuroscience professionals have studied their personal dreams - I sincerely doubt that they've had enough interest or curiosity to do so.
They are talking without knowledge or evidence.
I think it’s a question of hierarchy...psychoanalysis is a clinical method that can be utilized within neuroscience. But neuroscience is not a method that can be used within psychoanalysis. Thus, neuroscience is a contemporary, broader school of thought to which psychoanalysis belongs. It is simply the case that due to modernity, neuroscience has absorbed psychoanalysis as one form (among others) that aids the study of mind and brain. To me, it’s that simple.
I don't think that there is a hierarchy because I think they are describing or attempting to do very different things and even if there is overlap it is not on the same level - or very rarely. In a way i think that this is far more fruitful potentially than if there was a hierarchy as there are many and unexpected possibilities for information to cross inform the other discipline.
It’s not that simple ,as there are things neuro CANT DO that psycho can do ,so N needs P in ways P needs N !!!! Mike
@@mikelipschitz7281 do you know, a year after writing this answer to you above, and having now almost finished reading Interpretation of Dreams during pandemic lockdown with my study group (we’re on Chapter 7: Regression now), I would revise my answer a bit.I think you’re right - the meta-psychical aspects of Freudian theory are describing something different to anatomical aspects of brain, and adds a richness that neuroscience cannot easily measure. I’m still learning, I think it’s fascinating to learn from both important disciplines - neuroscience and psychoanalysis (in no particular order).
annoying
Berlin is insufferable and Stickgold is petty. Not a single intelligent (let alone valid) argument between the two of them.
I asked GPT: "In one debate, people debated "is X relevant to Y", but I thought that this sounded like an odd criticism, for one thing since it didn't fix very many definite questions and for another since it seemed potentially prejudiced. What are alternatives (verbs, please) for relevant, by which one field of inquiry or body of experts could help with another?"
GPT says: When discussing how one field of inquiry or body of experts could assist or be of use to another, the term "relevant" indeed may feel too broad or vague, and in some contexts, it might seem insufficient to capture the depth of potential contribution. Here are alternative verbs that can describe the relationship or contribution more specifically and vividly:
Inform - to provide data, insights, or knowledge that can shape understanding or decision-making in another field.
Enhance - to improve or augment the quality, value, or effectiveness of work in another domain.
Support - to offer backing, evidence, or foundation to theories, practices, or methodologies in another area.
Enrich - to add value, depth, or complexity to another field's perspectives or approaches.
Influence - to have an impact on the direction, development, or methodologies of another discipline.
Integrate - to combine or incorporate insights or methodologies seamlessly into another field.
Contribute to - to provide something beneficial, leading to improvement or advancement in another area.
Intersect with - to have points of commonality or overlap that can be explored for mutual benefit.
Collaborate with - to work jointly on an activity or project, emphasizing the cooperative effort across disciplines.
Complement - to fill in gaps or add missing elements in another field, enhancing its completeness or effectiveness.
Facilitate - to make a process or change easier or more possible in another field through expertise or resources.
Inspire - to stimulate new ideas, approaches, or innovations in another discipline.
Translate - to adapt or convert findings, theories, or practices into a form that is useful and applicable in another field.
Bridge - to connect and serve as a link between different areas of expertise, facilitating exchange and synergy.
Advance - to push forward, accelerating progress or innovation in another field through new insights or technologies.
These alternatives not only offer a richer vocabulary to describe inter-disciplinary contributions but also help in articulating the specific nature of the impact or assistance provided, avoiding potential vagueness or prejudice associated with the term "relevant".
The story Solms told of his patient with confabulatory amnesia, was quite amazing but contained no psychoanalytic concept application. He just explained how a conversation with acute attention paid to its details and dynamic can inform the treatment, but how was that psychoanalysis? Did Freud invent dialogue with patients? Did Oedipus aid Korsakoff, did it resolve or distort or molest it? glad Robert Stickgold brought this up
You think because he didn't reference any of the touchstones (or one might even say, 'stereotypes') of 'textbook Freudianism' (castration anxiety, dream interpretation, tripartite model of the psyche, etc.) that there was 'no psychoanalytic concept application'? Solms was quite clear about what aspect of psychoanalysis he /was/ applying: namely, attending to the subjective experiences of the patient, being vigilant about the emergence of themes that emerge, and undertaking to interpret those themes. This is certainly not something that the psychoanalysts that emerge, nor is it the exclusive domain of psychoanalysts today, but it is something that renders it distinct from cognitive, behavioural, or neurological approaches.
You have committed the same error as Stackgold here in thinking that because Mark's clinical vignette/published work does not conform to your very-impoverished understanding of what constitutes psychoanalysis, that he has abandoned it as either a conceptual framework or a modality of treatment, and instead only continues to invoke psychoanalysis as a kind of symbol devoid of content. This would be akin to someone who doesn't know anything about classical music arguing that Liszt abandoned classical music when he wrote Bagatelle sans tonalite because it lacks a tonal centre or that a psychologist is not really practicing psychotherapy if they don't employ operant conditioning with every/any of their patients.
@@purgatoriprytania5382 yes he didn't reference those touchstones because they are ridiculous and actually hamper attending to the subjective experience of the patient, and being vigilant about possible themes emerging, is a far cry from imposing Freudian oedipal themes on the words uttered, your analogy with classical music is superfluous, nothing I wrote is akin to that
@@sacredsoma Again, if you're arguing-and I'm not sure that you are even launching an argument, or just embarking on an unfocused screed against whatever it is you imagine psychoanalysis to be about-that not referencing those touchstones in Freud's works means you're not doing psychoanalysis then it is completely analogous to the two examples I utilised in my response. You simply do not know what your'e talking about, as is clear from your insinuation that psychoanalysis is about 'imposing themes' on the subjective experiences of the patients that one works with. The fact of the matter is that oedipal themes *do* emerge in the discourse and recollected experiences of some patients, but any good analyst-or psychotherapist in general-does not embark upon a course of treatment by seeking to hammer the patient's utterances into shapes so that they neatly fit the moulds of the different complexes enumerated by Freud. Freud himself cautioned against approaching interpretation this way, but given that you haven't read Freud, let-alone any of the dozens of theorists who followed in his wake, I suppose can't be expected to know anything beyond the usual cliches.
@@purgatoriprytania5382 OK I have read Freud and I despised it. You write that " The fact of the matter is that oedipal themes do emerge in the discourse and recollected experiences of some patients." OK I take that as a statement of faith. I don't share that faith and just as it is pointless convincing a Muslim of the absurdities of that religion, I will not urge you to read Borch-Jacobsen's "The Freud Files", or the numerous works by Frederick Crews on the Viennese witch doctor.
@@sacredsoma Dream interpretation is ridiculous? The notions of ego, id and superego are ridiculous? That's interesting.
Psychoanalysis fails the replicability test, and it isn’t predictive. Knowing about psychoanalysis is about as useful in predicting behavior as knowledge of poetry. The fact that people believe they can read minds by psychoanalysis should be viewed as being as silly as claims of psychic powers. Not science, therapeutic? Maybe in some cases. But not scientific.
Then why does it work?
"Knowing about psychoanalysis is about as useful in predicting behavior as knowledge of poetry." You know that psychoanalysis actually derives a lot from arts, and its seems to be really useful. Poetry is people expressing their subjective experience.
@@Nobody-Nowhere yes and just like poetry and the arts, each analysis is completely unconnected to all previous psychoanalysis you have done. Each patient must be handled subjectively, hard rules cannot be applied without layers upon layers of caveat, and teaching someone the structure of psychoanalytics won’t ensure they can competently psychoanalyze. It is more the combination of oratory talent, intuition and interpersonal relationship building. With a veneer of neuropathological theory binding the whole thing together. Neuroscience is highly relevant to a psychoanalyst but psychoanalysis is completely irrelevant to a neurobiologist or cognitive neuroscientist. Both of those are hard sciences with predictive power, ie: if I retard your dopamine reuptake system it will raise your self reported mood and help to stabilize it. I can make a hypothesis I can test it experimentally in a very concrete way and once I have come to a firm conclusion I can apply the new theory to any patient and get approximately the same results, moreover I can teach the theory to other people in the field and they can apply my theory to their cases and they will also get approximately the same results. And if they don’t get the same results they will review my own findings with their results show there is not a significant reproducibility of my results and then we can start reducing possible causes of that through very rigorous well measured experimental controls.
If I say “your dreams about being naked in a bus with an older woman are caused by an trauma experienced in the oral phase of development and it’s really a sign that you have developed an oedipal complex and want to have sex with your mother.” I cant do any of things above. There isn’t even a hard and fast definition for what the oral phase is? the edges are very blurry, what is an oedipal complex and what isn’t exactly? Why would trauma sublimate and then reappear years later in completely unrelated behavioral patterns? Can we predict with high certainty what patterns will develope based on the trauma experienced by a youth and use that prediction to effectively prevent the maladaptive coping mechanisms from occurring?
Youre right in that sometimes psychoanalysis works, just like grief counseling sometimes works, just like hypnosis to stop smoking sometimes works. But when exposed to the rigor of the empirical model, they all fall apart and all though we can certainly say that these are all worthwhile professions and worth studying. They are not science, and the patterns noticed by psychologists shouldnt inform the decisions of anyone but other psychologists.
And to clarify behavioral science, the sort of skinnerian black box model does pass most of the tests of empiricism. But it was a reaction to and denunciation of psychoanalysis by psychologists who basically made all the points i just did 60 years ago or so. Psychoanalysis strictly the application of principles (some based in science some not) in a dialectic methodology employed in conversations between a psychologists and a client.
@@rexluna5430 "teaching someone the structure of psychoanalytics won’t ensure they can competently psychoanalyze" Not all car mechanics are good car mechanics, and not all doctors are good doctors. Nothing out of the ordinary here. A good psychoanalyst needs to have a personality that suits the craft.
Two totally different disciplines, one studies the mind other the brain. Also, there are no " veneer of neuropathological theory " in psychoanalysis, as it studies the mind.. not the brain.
"if I retard your dopamine reuptake system it will raise your self reported mood and help to stabilize it" I dont think it works like that, for example SSRI meds have wide range of effect on different people.
"There isn’t even a hard and fast definition for what the oral phase is? the edges are very blurry, what is an oedipal complex and what isn’t exactly? " Maybe you should study it, to understand it?
It sounds more like you want simple easily defined answers. But what if the mind does not work like that? What if its chaotic in nature, constantly changing and in constant motion? You need for simple predefined clear cut answer does not mean that the universe or the mind operates like that.
@@rexluna5430 Also, if you are interested in a more structured psychoanalysis you might be interested in transference focused psychotherapy, that Otto Kernberg developed.
@@Nobody-Nowhere where does the mind come from? What is it? Quantify the mind for me clearly in a way that doesn’t involve simile or metaphor or make any vague inferences. Tell me what is this mind, what is it’s origin and what does it do?
If you can do that with scientific rigor without crossing into metaphysical abstraction or requiring some sort of leap of faith I will reconsider whether or not the concept of mind is even relevant to the topic of science.