Posted by alexandra_k on October 13, 2004, at 20:57:53
In reply to Re: The Association of Independent Psychoanalytic » alexandra_k, posted by Pfinstegg on October 12, 2004, at 21:41:33
I don't think anyone really knows the answer, but there are a lot of people trying to find out, and there is a lot of work that has been done on theory construction etc. I do appreciate that you were reporting someones view rather than attempting to think critically about it; it is just that I am sceptical (of everything) by nature and by training.
I know that there has been work done on the role of the hippocampus, and limbic system with respect to memories - and it seems that you were concerned with refiring of intense emotional states to subtle internal or external stimuli rather than the verbal recall of trauma. (is this right?). In that case we are looking at implicit memory rather than verbal memory. Or at experience rather than belief. Beliefs (I reckon anyway) are distributed, whereas experiences may more plausibly be localised.
I am currently doing some work on delusions and it seems that (to a certain extent) a correlation can be found with certain kinds of cerebral trauma and certain kinds of delusions. For example, in cases of the Capgras and Cotard delusion. This raises interesting questions regarding whether a specific delusional belief is 'caused' by, or results directly from the localised head injury. Maybe it is fair to say that the belief that 'my wife has been replaced by an impostor' is a direct result of the cerebral trauma, and is therefore localised to a great extent in those cases. All of that is highly controversial, of course. (Actually I want to maintain that the trauma produces a certain kind of anomalous experience which, when accepted as veridical, or reported on as a subjective experience results understandably and inevitably in utterances characteristic of certain kinds of delusion).
Hope I am not too confusing...
> It is very striking to me how they say that that they cannot dream or feel deeply.
Though is it that they do not dream, or that they do not remember their dreams? This could be tested empirically.
Emotions seem more linked to the right hemisphere than the left, that is true. I am not sure that I would want to say that these people have a diminished unconscious - but then I suppose that I am not a realist about the unconscious. When I did DBT I was told that the structure of mind was that there was 'rational mind', 'emotional mind' and 'wise mind' and a nurse tries to tell me that they were the left, right, and both hemispheres respectively. The psychodynamic theorists similarly speak of the ego, id, superego etc as the structure of mind. I think of these as metaphoric. The structure of mind (in my opinion) is best revealed by cognitive neuro-psychologists who are interested in discovering the mental modules of which the mind is composed.
poster:alexandra_k
thread:402170
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20041002/msgs/402826.html