This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Citation Map Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Gedo, J. E. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Gedo, J. E. Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Reflections On Metapsychology, Theoretical Coherence, Hermeneutics, and Biology

University of Chicago

Unable to correlate clinical findings with contemporary neurophysiology, Freud tried to anchor psychoanalysis within biology through a speculative metapsychology. Recently, epistemological objections have led to abandonment of his proposals qua scientific theory, although many still use them metaphorically. Others deny the need for any general theory of mental functions. Some theorists would espouse a hermeneutic basis for psychoanalysis, outside the boundaries of biology; they purport to confine their purview to mental contents but often use concepts based on metapsychological assumptions. Because the meanings of such contents are difficult to determine, their interpretation should be "constructed" in collaboration with analysands. By contrast, trained observers may reliably collect psychobiological data, accumulating knowledge of cognition, affectivity, communication, and the regulation of behavior—matters Freud encompassed via the economic and structural viewpoints. Hence analytic theory should be correlated with the findings of semiotics, cognitive psychology, and brain science. The hermeneutic focus on dynamics and genetics overlooks crucial data, such as the occurrence of trauma, leading to confusion about processes of pathogenesis, working through, and structural change. These and other biological phenomena (such as functional deficits and repetitive enactments) call for interventions beyond interpreting mental contents; improvement depends on learning better to process these contents. Change implies gradual establishment of alternative neural pathways; this does not automatically follow insight. Hence psychoanalysis must deal with intrapsychic phenomena beyond subjectivity. Intrapsychic conflicts represent efforts to ward off archaic mentality (primitive thought processing). Theories divorced from neurocognitive considerations encourage the theoretical fiction that analysands possess an "intact ego."

Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Vol. 45, No. 3, 779-806 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/00030651970450030401


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?

This article has been cited by other articles:

				D. M. Orange, R. D. Stolorow, and G. E. Atwood Hermeneutics, Intersubjectivity Theory, and Psychoanalysis J Am Psychoanal Assoc, June 1, 1998; 46(2): 568 - 571. [PDF]

				D. M. Orange, R. D. Stolorow, and G. E. Atwood Hermeneutics, Intersubjectivity Theory, and Psychoanalysis J Am Psychoanal Assoc, April 1, 1997; 46(2): 568 - 571. [PDF]