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FREUDIAN LOCALIZATION: A NEUROPSYCHOANALYTIC DIALOGUE BETWEEN ON APHASIA AND ‘THE UNCONSCIOUS’

by | Vol 43 (4) 2025

Summary: The question – and challenge – of localization is central to contemporary neuropsychoanalysis. While meta-psychological mappings of brain areas have been made, critics emphasize the incompatibility of psychodynamics with brain location. Freud himself dealt with the tension between location and function of different systems, not only in his psychoanalytic meta-psychology, but also in his neurological career. Both the 1915 essay ‘The Unconscious’ and the 1891 monograph On Aphasia tarry between localization and function. Close reading of these texts reveals that Freud does not categorically reject localization. He carves a dynamic model that still admits of localization. This paper employs a neuropsychoanalytic dialogue internal to Freud – between 1891 and 1915 – to articulate the key features of Freud’s meta-psychological theory built, in part, upon neuropsychological dynamic localization. Implications for contemporary neuropsychoanalysis will be briefly discussed.

Conversations with Howard Shevrin III, Ghent, December 1st, 2005

by | Vol 28 (3/4) 2010

Howard Shevrin’s interest in neuroscience was first methodological: it provided independent evidence on what goes on unconsciously. The foundation of the mind needs not to be entirely neurophysiological: it is possible to describe the mechanisms in psychological terms. However, we aren’t anywhere near a unified theory of the brain and mind. When one goes into analysis, the theory is no longer simply about ideas, one’s life almost hangs in the balance. There is an enormous disparity between the neuroscientist publishing his findings and the analyst who is treating patients, but not publishing. If neuro-psychoanalysis is only going to rely on the neuroscience part, it’s really not going to achieve its important objective. People into psychoanalysis should be trained in “the basic science of psychoanalysis”, which should not be limited to neuroscience, but should include a really important training in psychology, sociology, etc.