The Talking Cure: A Neurosychoanalytic Perspective (Streaming Option)

MARK SOLMS, Neuropsychologist and Psychoanalyst

THE TALKING CURE: A NEUROPSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE

September 25, 2021, ZOOM.

Those who were unable to attend the event may purchase a recording-only ticket option below, and will be sent a link to the recording afterwards.

About this lecture

This three-part lecture will describe some recent developments in the neurosciences which have implications for the theory and practice of psychoanalysis. The first lecture will focus on changes in our understanding of what is conscious and unconscious in the brain. This requires us to distinguish sharply between what Freud called the ‘id’ and the ‘system Unconscious’. The implications for the theory of ‘repression’ are particularly important clinically. The second lecture will focus on what Freud called ‘drive theory’. There are not two emotional drives at work in the brain but rather seven. Since these represent the basic emotional needs of the human being, the clinical implications of this new classification of the drives are immense. The third lecture focusses on these clinical implications, in a practical way. The main issues that will be discussed are (a) the mode of therapeutic action of the ‘talking cure’, (b) our understanding of
‘transference’ and (c) the importance of ‘working through’.

Goals and Objectives

• Participants will be able to describe the brain mechanisms of consciousness.
•  Participants will be able to identify and recognize the seven instinctual emotions of the
  human brain.
• Participants will be able to describe the unconscious memory systems of the brain, and
  the diverse ways in which they learn and remember.
• Participants will be able to apply advances in the neuroscientific understanding of
  emotion and memory to the practice of psychotherapy

About the speaker

Professor Mark Solms has received numerous prizes and honours, such as the Sigourney Prize, the IPA’s Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award and Honorary Fellowship of the American College of Psychiatrists. He is Training Director of the South African Psychoanalytical Association, Director of the Science Dept of the American Psychoanalytic Association and Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association. He has published 350 articles in both neuroscientific and psychoanalytic journals, and he has authored eight books. The Brain and the Inner World was translated into 13 languages. His collected papers were published recently as The Feeling Brain. His latest book, The Hidden Spring, appeared in early 2021. He is the editor and translator of the forthcoming Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (24 vols) and Complete Neuroscientific Works of Sigmund Freud (4 vols).