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The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development

This paper is principally concerned with reappraising some of the major disagreements that separated the Viennese and the London Kleinians during the British Psychoanalytical Society's Controversial Discussions. Of particular focus are questions pertaining to the genesis of ego development, the...

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Autor principal: Mellor, Matthew John
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8446268/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34539502
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.701637
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author Mellor, Matthew John
author_facet Mellor, Matthew John
author_sort Mellor, Matthew John
collection PubMed
description This paper is principally concerned with reappraising some of the major disagreements that separated the Viennese and the London Kleinians during the British Psychoanalytical Society's Controversial Discussions. Of particular focus are questions pertaining to the genesis of ego development, the beginnings of object-relating, and the role of unconscious phantasy in respect of these phenomena. The aim of the investigation is to inquire into the light that may be shed on the once intractable conflicts surrounding these questions by bringing to bear more recent developments from psychoanalysis and the neurosciences. First, various key issues from the Controversial Discussions are outlined, before the paper turns to work by Jaak Panksepp and Mark Solms that bears on these older arguments and the Freudian theories that underpinned them. With these conceptual foundations established, three questions are posed and discussed with a view to understanding the implications of recent neuropsychoanalytic thinking for some of the entrenched conflicts that divided the British Society. These questions include: (1) what does it mean for the ego if the id is conscious? (2) What does recent neuroscientific knowledge tell us about whether the ego should be thought of as present from birth? (3) How can we understand and locate unconscious phantasy if the main part of the mind that Freud thought of as unconscious is not so? Research from the arena of infant development—particularly the material and analysis of infant observation—is drawn on to illustrate various conclusions. The paper ultimately concludes that taking such an interdisciplinary approach can reveal renewed justification for aspects of the Kleinian metapsychology.
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spelling pubmed-84462682021-09-18 The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development Mellor, Matthew John Front Psychol Psychology This paper is principally concerned with reappraising some of the major disagreements that separated the Viennese and the London Kleinians during the British Psychoanalytical Society's Controversial Discussions. Of particular focus are questions pertaining to the genesis of ego development, the beginnings of object-relating, and the role of unconscious phantasy in respect of these phenomena. The aim of the investigation is to inquire into the light that may be shed on the once intractable conflicts surrounding these questions by bringing to bear more recent developments from psychoanalysis and the neurosciences. First, various key issues from the Controversial Discussions are outlined, before the paper turns to work by Jaak Panksepp and Mark Solms that bears on these older arguments and the Freudian theories that underpinned them. With these conceptual foundations established, three questions are posed and discussed with a view to understanding the implications of recent neuropsychoanalytic thinking for some of the entrenched conflicts that divided the British Society. These questions include: (1) what does it mean for the ego if the id is conscious? (2) What does recent neuroscientific knowledge tell us about whether the ego should be thought of as present from birth? (3) How can we understand and locate unconscious phantasy if the main part of the mind that Freud thought of as unconscious is not so? Research from the arena of infant development—particularly the material and analysis of infant observation—is drawn on to illustrate various conclusions. The paper ultimately concludes that taking such an interdisciplinary approach can reveal renewed justification for aspects of the Kleinian metapsychology. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-09-03 /pmc/articles/PMC8446268/ /pubmed/34539502 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.701637 Text en Copyright © 2021 Mellor. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Mellor, Matthew John
The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development
title The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development
title_full The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development
title_fullStr The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development
title_full_unstemmed The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development
title_short The Emergence of Psychoanalytic Metaneuropsychology: A Neuropsychoanalytically Informed Reconsideration of Early Psychic Development
title_sort emergence of psychoanalytic metaneuropsychology: a neuropsychoanalytically informed reconsideration of early psychic development
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8446268/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34539502
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2021.701637
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