Harnessing psychoanalytical methods for a phenomenological neuroscience.

Psychoanalysis offers phenomenological tools that can advance the study of consciousness, addressing a gap in cognitive sciences where techniques for elucidating subjective life are lacking. Experiential reporting methods must match complex theories of brain function and sophisticated neuroimaging. Psychoanalysts use systematic observation and unstructured narrative to help patients articulate experience and bring unconscious contents to awareness. Individuals who have undergone analysis become experts in discerning subjective experience, making them ideal for neurophenomenology. Analytic techniques can guide untrained participants toward greater awareness of selfhood, temporality, and inter-subjectivity. Mining psychoanalysis for methodological innovations offers a fresh direction for neuropsychoanalysis and cognitive science.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Psychoanalysis proffers a wealth of phenomenological tools to advance the study of consciousness. Techniques for elucidating the structures of subjective life are sorely lacking in the cognitive sciences; as such, experiential reporting techniques must rise to meet both complex theories of brain function and increasingly sophisticated neuroimaging technologies. Analysis may offer valuable methods for bridging the gap between first-person and third-person accounts of the mind. Using both systematic observational approaches alongside unstructured narrative interactions, psychoanalysts help patients articulate their experience and bring unconscious mental contents into awareness. Similar to seasoned meditators or phenomenologists, individuals who have undergone analysis are experts in discerning and describing their subjective experience, thus making them ideal candidates for neurophenomenology. Moreover, analytic techniques may provide a means of guiding untrained experimental participants to greater awareness of their mental continuum, as well as gathering subjective reports about fundamental yet elusive aspects of experience including selfhood, temporality, and inter-subjectivity. Mining psychoanalysis for its methodological innovations provides a fresh turn for the neuropsychoanalysis movement and cognitive science as a whole - showcasing the integrity of analysis alongside the irreducibility of human experience.