10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)

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Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza(Trieste)Carlo Semenza

a

aDepartment of Psychology, University of Trieste, Via S. Anastasio, 12, 34100, Trieste,

Italy, e-mail:

Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article:Carlo Semenza (2001) Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste), Neuropsychoanalysis:An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 3:1, 38-45, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.2001.10773335

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(1998b), Preliminaries for an integration of psycho

analysis and neuroscience. Brit. Psycho-Anal. Soc.

Bull., 34 9 :23-38.

(1999), Towards an integration

of

psychoanalysis

and the neurosciences. Part 2: Syndrome analysis of psy

chic functions.

Forum der Psychoanalyse, 15:58-70.

(In German)

(2000), Freud, Luria and the clinical method. Psy

choanal. Hist., 2:76-109.

Centre rCognitive Neuroscience

School

Psychology

University

Wales, Bangor, 383670

Gwynedd, Wales

LL57 2DG, U

e-mail: [email protected]

Carlo Semenza

Response to Commentaries by

Carlo

Semenza (Trieste)

General

While waiting for relevant case studies, neuropsychoa

nalysis, as I think this journal is trying to promote,

can only be an intellectual exercise. This exercise of

exploring the fields of psychoanalysis and neurosci

ence primarily consists

of

the search for concepts that,

while developed in one

of

the two disciplines, may

turn out to be useful if somehow incorporated into

the other.

The shared belief is obviously that psychoanaly

sis and neuroscience, while differing in aims and

methods, are ultimately about the same

thing-the

hu

man mind. We know that the two disciplines have

been separated almost from the very beginning, and

that adepts of one field have generally gone their own

way without knowing too much about the other field.

In many respects this separation was desirable,

and dictated by theoretical necessity and lack of em

pirical findings bridging the two fields. In the past

decade, however, the opinion emerged that there was

no longer a reason for this state of affairs. It was intu

ited that the advanced knowledge in neuroscience

could now allow useful interaction with psychoanaly

sis. I am also convinced that the reverse is true: Psy

choanalysis can indeed inspire interesting

interpretations

of

findings in neuroscience.

Within this framework I felt I could offer a few

suggestions. These were by no means prescriptions, as

some of my commentators, notably Green, understood

them to be. My aim was only to provide some food

for thought. In short, my main suggestions were the

following:

Carlo Semenza, M.D., is Professor of Neuropsychology at the Univer

sity of Trieste, Italy.

If psychoanalysis is to benefit from neuroscience,

this could better and more naturally happen with

the mediation

of

cognitive psychology.

2 Cognitivism is not a psychology entirely extrane

ous to Freud s thought. If Freud s scientific back

ground and his

work on

aphasia in particular are

closely considered, his familiarity with ideas and

methods that would later be the basis of cognitive

psychology is revealed.

3 Cognitive neuropsychology and psychoanalysis

have methodological affinities. The supremacy of

single case methodology, valid in both disciplines,

stems from what cognitive neuropsychologists

have called the principle of transparency: Pathol

ogy, provoking an imbalance among working struc

tures and processes, may highlight, in specific

cases, functions that are obscured by the harmoni

ous flow of a relatively undisturbed mind.

4 Connectionist models should be adopted with the

utmost caution. Shallow analogies will not work

and would make any theorization more prone to

criticisms of Popper s type (while I believe that,

properly defended by the same sort of arguments

that cognitive neuropsychologists use, psychoanal

ysis could instead be virtually immune to such dev

astating objections).

5 Somehow, against immediate intuition, the modu

larity theory may be useful, especially in a less rigid

form than Fodor s. There are indeed theoretical

distinctions within memory functions that are neu

rologically implemented. These distinctions may be

useful when considered within psychoanalysis. A

key concept in Fodor s theory, that of informa

tional encapsulation, may perhaps be specula-


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Psychoanalysis

and

Cognitive Neuroscience

tively played with in psychoanalysis in a useful

way.

This series

of

suggestions appears to have stimu-

lated in my commentators, who sometimes curiously

contradict each other, a variety of criticisms. Some of

these, I am afraid, are entirely pointless, since they are

directed toward something I never said. I will willingly

answer the others, and, indeed, in some cases I will

incorporate them into my own arguments. Had I more

time and space, I would have indicated potential diffi-

culties myself and later shown how they could be ac-

commodated. Instead, I will comment

on

new

suggestions that, following on from my own, seem to

open space for some advancement, and I will take the

opportunity for further speculations.

The Issue of Cognitivism

I thought my position

on

cognitivism was clear. A

basic problem for neuropsychoanalysis is how to

bridge findings and theories in neuroscience with

findings and theories in psychoanalysis. I started by

stating that I did not believe there was much within

the indubitable progress made by neuroscience in the

century after Freud abandoned neurology to encourage

any new step by neuroscience toward psychoanalysis

and vice versa. Speaking

of

a profitable alliance or,

more remotely, reunification into a unitary discipline

(the lat ter may be an idealistic or even undesirable

outcome) is irrelevant to the present arguments.

Neuroscience, by its nature, can hardly influence

psychoanalysis directly. Modern images of the work-

ing brain, or impressive acquisitions in neurochemis-

try, do not reveal much about mental processes. There

are, however, interesting findings that lend themselves

to promising speculations. The data on the differential

maturation

of

the hippocampus and the amygdala,

which can explain infantile amnesia, are an example

of

this. Another example is the data about the damage

a psychological trauma can cause to hippocampal

structures, via release

of

corticosteroids, which can

explain posttraumatic amnesia.

These examples are not mine: The value

of

these

findings for psychoanalysis has been pointed out by

the neuroscientist and Nobel Prize winner Eric Kandel

(1999). Kandel is not a cognitive neuroscientist, but

he has studied the difference between declarative and

procedural memory. Without knowing about such a

difference, we would not be able to appreciate the

implications

of

the above mentioned data. Most

of

the benefit psychoanalysis can derive from hard

neuroscience therefore needs to be derived through the

mediation of cognitive science.

In the same way, I speculate that knowledge

of

the phenomenon

of

blindsight may end up enlight-

ening us about psychological mechanisms supporting

projective identification. But only through cognitively

oriented studies can we understand the extent

of

a

phenomenon that not only (unconsciously) acquires

information but is also primed by it.

The mediation

of

cognitive science is necessary

in all these cases to the benefit o f psychoanalysis.

Those who think that basic neuroscience can directly

inspire psychoanalysis should provide examples.f re-

liably produced, these examples would not, however,

undermine the fact that in so many cases mediation

through cognitive science proves necessary. On the

other hand, I never argued that cognitive science can

do without biological data, as some commentators

seem to have understood. I would not otherwise waste

most

of

my time with neuropsychology. However, as

I argued with the Mendel example, one can sometimes

provide good theories and discover interesting facts

without knowledge

of

structure. Uncoupling brain and

cognition, exactly as Freud did, may not be a mortal

sin.

The way I described cognitivism, with the help

of

Gardner s list, does not bind to particular subtheo-

ries, nor does it impinge on the uses one may want to

make of its basic tenets. The issue of the computer

metaphor, which literally nobody believes anymore,

may be nonetheless useful in providing ideas about

a sometimes desirable level

of

description

of

mental

processes.

f

the temporary neglect of affect, context,

and so on, was a useful way to start, nobody would

deny that now is the time to direct cognitive analysis

toward emotional aspects

of

our mind. Not doing this

would soon relegate cognitivism to the Stone Age.

The emotional domain definitely does not deserve a

lower epistemic status. There is nothing, in principle,

about keeping this attitude that corresponds to more

than a strategic choice. Moreover, psychoanalysis can

lead the way.

reud

All I claimed about Freud is that he was not culturally

opposed to the ideas that later developed into cognitiv-

ism. And, perhaps, that some psychoanalytic concepts

may be harmlessly translated into, or find their corre-

spondents in, cognitive terms. This is not an original


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40

claim of mine. Erdelyi s book, which I mentioned not

without some criticisms, already made the idea popu

lar a few years ago. I

just

added some evidence from

the history

of

neuropsychology that apparently es

caped Erdelyi s attention. I insist that

Freud s

analysis

of

aphasia in theoretically defendable linguistic terms

is what makes his essay very similar to the work

of

modern cognitive neuropsychologists. John Marshall

adds even more to the same effect.

My mentioning the diagram makers, which dis

turbs Brown so much, did not ignore the fact that

Freud harshly criticized them. It was simply meant to

show that Freud was very familiar with their kind of

reasoning and that he beat them at their own game,

using the same logic (here I am again backed by Mar

shall), while indeed reaching very different conclu

sions.

It must be acknowledged that it has been through

using a similar logic that modern cognitive neuropsy

chologists, whatever their demerits, have, especially

in the realm

of

language, described cognitive pro

cesses at a level of detail that has so far been unsur

passed. Experiments with normals have generally

confirmed these observations. Indeed, I must concede

that there may be some truth in Kinsbourne s argu

ment that,

if

neuropsychoanalysis were to succeed

where Freud had to abstain, it would be in terms

of

models at a far more general level than that at which

cognitive neuropsychology currently operates. I sug

gest, however, that we wait and see. Surely fine

grained concepts like the episodic buffer, a newly

theorized component of short-term memory (Badde

ley, 2000), may well find their utility in understanding

processes in the therapist-patient interaction (see re

sponse to Saling for more).

Methodological Affinities

Considering the above, it may not be just a coincidence

that cognitive neuropsychology and psychoanalysis

share some basic methodological assumptions. As

Modell correctly puts it, ,[Both] psychopathology and

neuropathology can be seen as a kind of deconstruc

tion that teases apart functions that are transparent and

cannot easily be observed in health.

Contrary to what Kinsbourne thinks, however,

theoretically relevant single cases are not selected for

different reasons in the two disciplines. What Kins

bourne captures is a sociological-situational state of

affairs. Most cognitive neuropsychologists hold aca

demic positions and are not directly responsible for

Carlo Semenza

the care of patients, from whom they do not derive

their income. They chase interesting cases, how

ever, out of a huge population and are only allowed

to study those in which they intuitively identify a po

tential theoretical interest, after a short period of con

tact and little testing. With respect to this position,

psychoanalysts have advantages and disadvantages.

They mostly work on their own and generally can

hardly afford to choose only prima facie scientifically

interesting patients. They may, however, eventually

discover the theoretical interest of patients in the

long run.

Indeed, cognitive neuropsychologists tend to re

port cases that are unusual in the apparent selectivity

of their cognitive deficit, which is then construed as

revealing impairment

of

a previously unknown mental

operation. , In contributing to the advancement of

their discipline, psychoanalysts do exactly the same.

They tend to study and repor t on patients in whom a

given symptom stands out as very prominent. This

symptom is then generally interpreted as reflecting an

imbalance in psychodynamic functions that may thus

be better identified. Little Hans was not drafted to be

described by Freud among his several patients. His

phobia made him interesting, and informed Freud

about mental mechanisms that we all share.

The danger

of such a procedure is surely that of

post hoc explanations, but this danger is equally

shared by cognitive neuropsychology and psychoanal

ysis. The necessary countermeasures are exactly the

same (even

if

psychoanalysts seem to care less). Con

verging evidence should be sought in both instances.

Connectionism

It should be clear that I did not criticize connectionist

models in themselves. They are very likely to directly

reflect the working

of the mind at levels in which

psychoanalysis is indeed pivotally interested. My pres

ent concern is, however, that their heuristic value may

be limited. I cannot see how, in psychoanalysis at the

present moment, one can adjudicate among different

alternatives on the basis of connectionist modeling. It

seems to me that all that is left is the chance of making

a shallow analogy. This does not seem to be the wisest

way to deal with complexity. I might be wrong but,

a scientist and not necessarily as a therapist, my

style of thinking needs to have some stricter control

over the concepts that I manipulate. Reading some

psychoanalytic literature, especially outside the main


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Psychoanalysis and Cognitive Neuroscience

journals , makes me wish that my attitude was more

widely shared.

Modularity

I have admittedly used modularity

s

a metaphor and,

in my own version (Semenza, Bisiacchi, and Rosen

thal, 1988), underlying its epistemological value.

Again, my choice may be related to my own way

of

reasoning, but I think there are good, independent rea

sons to seek inspiration from modularity theory. Psy

choanalysis demonstrates that some information in

our minds may segregate itself from other information.

f

one judges from papers appearing in major

psychoanalytic journals, from conferences and group

studies that are organized

llover

the world, the con

cept of independent types of memory, as theorized in

cognitive psychology and supported by neuroscience,

is now ethusiastically (though often naively) adopted

in psychoanalytic circles. I still think it may

e

a good

idea to employ the concept

of

informational encapsu

lation. I now realize, however, that I should have ex

plained my thinking in greater detail and

in

a more

precise way. Some commentators have objected that

informational encapsulation does not account for the

dynamic process

of

repression. True: but, when speak

ing about encapsulated memories, I was mainly refer

ring to what happens in the unconscious portion

of

the ego that is not repressed. This portion would corre

spond to Hartmann's concept

of

an area of the ego

that is free

of

conflicts. Kandel (1999) has identified

the same area as a content

of

procedural memory. This

area includes functions that are present from birth:

motility, perception, association, and so on. These

functions mature in parallel with drives, and relatively

independently of conflicts. A subject makes the expe

riences leading to the formation of the self via these

systems. Absence

of

empathy or excessive intru

siveness, for example, could determine,

s

an adaptive

and initially useful response, isolation

in

proce

dural memory

of

these ill-represented (or nonrepre

sented,

if

one sticks to a narrower sense

of

representation that seems to be preferred

in

psycho

analysis) memories. These memories, which may

never become verbal, would emerge mainly

s

somatic

sensations, resulting in suffering, nightmares, acting

out, and difficult relationships. Less primitive, yet

hardly accessible, procedural memories may establish

themselves as action patterns later in life, through the

process

of

identification. None

of

these memories,

which I would call encapsulated because

of

their auto-

matic unconscious emergence, have ever been re

pressed.

In conclusion, before answering individual com

ments, let me return to the opening arguments

of

this

response. I said I consider neuropsychoanalysis an ap

pealing (at least to me) intellectual exercise. I also

believe it is a useful one. I do not know where it will

lead us (that 's part

of

the appeal). Psychoanalysis has

taught us that free imagination can lead us to unfore

seeable truths. In a few years we will be able to mea

sure the mileage we have run.

f

it is short, I for one

will be ready to give up. Considering the huge amount

of

ideas that have been raised in the very recent years,

however, I am optimistic. All the more so, as I believe

this neuropsychoanalysis group is ahead

of

the game.

Welcome

on

board, you who dare

Response to Brown

I cannot but share Brown's bitterness in witnessing

history being written by the winners. Acting not in

New York, but at the margin

of

Western geography,

and being subjected to Anglo-American linguistic im

perialism (since misunderstanding seems around the

corner, I must rush to specify that I thank the same

linguistic group for being born a free man), I know

the feeling all too well. This notwithstanding, I feel,

in this case, more at ease than Brown.

I indeed gave credit to two very successful

schools

of

thought that Brown has opposed for a long

time (e.g., Brown, 1988): the diagram makers, espe

cially in the modern version resurrected by Geschwind

(1965), and that

of

so-called cognitive neuropsychol

ogy. I easily admit to having been educated and

strongly influenced by both. I did not, however, accept

more than I wanted to. Wherever it felt appropriate I

went my own way and undertook serious opposition

against what did not convince me. This is not the right

place to enter into what could be a complicated discus

sion. I will therefore just provide some explanation.

I was very cautious in speaking about the diagram

makers: All I said was that Freud was very familiar

with their models and that these models could be con

sidered to be early versions

of

cognitive neuropsychol

ogy models. This is what many would subscribe to

(see Marshall), and does not imply an uncritical accep

tance

of

the diagram-maker school.

Brown's theory, I hope to report it correctly, is

that brain damage reveals normal stages in the mo

ment-to-moment processing of

cognition. The errors

produced by patients are the result of incomplete pro-


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42

cessing at a certain stage. This is the way Brown in

tends what I called the pr inc iple of transparency,

and I would certainly side with him on this issue.

Cognitive neuropsychologists, he claims, only con

sider the final conscious) content

of

a mental repre

sentation rather than the stages through which that

representation unfolds. I ll leave aside the question of

whether this is always entirely true. I can only say

that, in my own version of the transparency principle

see Semenza [1996], for the latest version), I state

that what is revealing is what the patient does instead

of what the patient does not do. As a consequence,

the analysis of errors becomes more important. The

implications coincide exactly with

Brown s

views. I

believe, however, that many who still call themselves

cognitive neuropsychologists would no longer object

to these views.

Disagreements with individual positions do not

mean rejecting what could, theoretically, be put to

work

profitably. I thus think that there is no danger in

borrowing some concepts from cognitive neuropsy

chology that may turn out to be useful in psycho

analysis.

Response to Green

I do not believe the moon is made

of

gorgonzola. It

may eventually be found that our satellite is indeed,

under the surface crust, mostly made of this special

kind of blue cheese, but that is not what I believe now.

Just in the same way, with the same degree of cer

tainty, I do not believe the following:

Most psychoanalysts are unwitting perverts;

2 Freud s better work is in the aphasia book than in

the Project ;

3. There is nothing to learn from the observation of

pathology;

4. Analysis

of

behavior should be conducted at the

neurological

level ;

and, last, but not least;

5. Sexuality is dirty, old-fashioned, and irrelevant to

present knowledge.

I wonder what led Green to understand other

wise? I also stated that I doubt that our knowledge of

neuroscience, with respect to what was available in

Freud s time, would allow without the mediation of

cognitive science) a more fruitful interaction with psy

choanalysis. This is indeed debatable, but it is none

theless what I believe. Again Green seems to have

understood the contrary.

Carlo Semenza

I am fully aware of the diversity of psychoana

lytic endeavors and of the variety of different schools.

I mentioned Fonagy 1999) only because he had re

cently published something about the sort

of

things

neuropsychoanalysis may be doing. I felt I could use

these works as an example to comment upon. I could

have chosen from a dozen other articles in major jour

nals. I by no means believe that this is the only inter

esting and valuable stuff psychoanalysts could be busy

with. I actually believe that neuropsychoanalysis has

a long way to go before producing anything as valu

able as, for instance, Green s own

work

on narcissism.

Amidst this cloud of misunderstanding, Green

raises some very interesting questions. One concerns

the different training needed for psychoanalysis and

neuroscience. Green seems to think that training in

one domain is incompatible with training in the other.

I do not expect everybody to agree with this position

entirely. While resisting the urge to engage in a debate

on the matter, I suggest that Neuro Psychoanalysis

takes the challenge for an open discussion seriously.

The other question concerns the type of memory ap

pearing in dreams. I believe that this is a very im

portant question, although I do not think that I have

an answer. But I feel I can speculate on one aspect.

Recollection of dreams enters psychoanalysis with an

episodic character. Elements

of

dreams are often

loosely related to each other: This may be the reason

why they are difficult to remember. Once shared with

the analyst, dreams enter semantic memory in both

the patient and the analyst). As such they can establish

new, meaningful connections with stored information

and thus provide the patient and the analyst with new,

potentially healthy, solutions.

Response to Issaharoff

I am grateful to Issaharoff for rephrasing what I said,

in words that would make it understandable to a wider

audience. He does so in a very scholarly and stimulat

ing fashion.

Issaharoff correctly understands my use of

com-

putation and of modularity I do use the former as a

metaphor and the lat ter as a strategy. He also under

stands how I use the idea

of informational encapsula-

tion

I do indeed refer to the difficulty in changing

procedural mechanisms and their motor circuits. But

there are other qualities, besides informational encap

sulation, that I think may be pathologically segregated

pieces

of

procedural memory which resemble modular

features. Automatic activation is one important char-


7/9


acteristic. Also, once action stems from these encapsu

lated memories, it runs all the way with little chance

of being inhibited.

Issaharoff, unlike Green, seems to be prepared to

understand the reasons why I criticize some psychoan

alytic work. As he says, authors in this discipline,

more than elsewhere, have chosen theories and clinical

data according to their convenience. I would add that

sometimes they feel authorized to write, typically un

like Freud, in a very obscure way.

While I argued that one way

of

describing what

may happen in psychoanalysis is to say that nondeclar

ative aspects of a patient s memory are transformed

into declarative sentences, Issaharoff observes that this

is an interesting contribution which psychoanalysis

submits to cognitive science. This strikes me

s

a very

intelligent remark.

Response to Kinsbourne

Most of what I have to tell Kinsbourne

is

contained in

my general response. I have already answered Brown

about the necessity

of

looking at the quality of errors.

I feel inclined to defend psychoanalysis against

one unjust criticism. Kinsbourne states that The

credibility of psychoanalysis s a science would bene

fit from studies which, based on how one pat ient s

disorder is construed, successfully predict similar

problems in another patient who appears to have un

dergone a sufficiently similar experience (p. 26).

This may be acceptable, and indeed I believe that is

the way psychoanalysts actually think, unless, how

ever, one is ready to accept the naive position that the

sufficiently similar experience should be an objec

tively similar one. Psychoanalytic theories would be

true in this case, for instance,

if

all individuals who

had undergone a given trauma showed the same symp

toms. This is simply ridiculous. It may take years,

instead, to be a good enough analyst to gather evidence

that a given experience is lived, by a single patient, in

a way that is emotionally equivalent to that

of

an

other patient. This is the correct way, but I also believe

that it accommodates generalization.

The interesting part of Kinsbourne s comment is

in his final proposals. Brain lesions can both exag

gerate existing personality traits and engender new and

different ones. They can also create bodily states that

defy the patient s understanding How o patients

react dynamically to brain damage that not only re

stricts and distorts their experience, but also trans

forms their cognitive style and the coping mechanisms

at their disposal? (p. 26). All these are very fascinat

ing questions and I hope they will soon be addressed

properly. Freud himself could have done this: There

is nothing modern neuroscience could have added. Has

Turnbull anything to say about this (see below)?

Finally Kinsbourne accuses me of sweeping

claims because, accompanied by words of caution

which he ignores, I argued that Freud came close to

discovering the basic tenets of cognitive neuroscience.

Toward the end of his comment he, instead, states: If

Sigmund Freud were reincarnated in the 21st century,

I suggest he would choose to be a neuropsychologist. ,

I ll leave to the judgment of our readers

s

to which

of us provides the more sweeping claims to this forum.

Response to Marshall

I am glad to have Marshall s support about my inter

pretation

of

Freud s background and

of

the logic he

used in his criticism of the diagram-makers neuropsy

chology.

Marshall offers his own speculation as to why

Freud abandoned neuroscience. He focuses our atten

tion on Freud s theoretical problems with hysteria. I

think that, from a historical point of view, he is right.

That is indeed how, so far as facts are concerned,

everything started. Marshall then quotes his own

work

on hysterical paralysis as an example of what we may

aim at doing. I cannot but subscribe. Incidentally, that

study is one interesting example

of

the few honest

uses of the new neuroimaging techniques, in support

of

neuropsychoanalysis.

Marshall expresses his perplexities about the

ability of modularity theory to deal with prima facie

central

functions. I will also mention elsewhere

(see my response to Modell) that cognitive neuropsy

chologists have conquered from within the modularity

framework functions considered by Fodor to be non

modular. Marshall takes the example

of

beliefs. Well,

beliefs may stem from different components of the

memory systems. Different parts of the brain may en

tertain different beliefs. Somatoparaphrenia, which

Marshall takes

s

an example, may consist of the delu

sional belief that

one s

own paralyzed limb belongs

to somebody else. I once observed this condition in a

neurologist, who insisted

on

his delusion despite a still

intact knowledge of his discipline, including the con

cept of somatoparaphrenia.


8/9

Response to Modell

I have little to say here that I did not say already in

my general response above. Modell provides a series

of

provisos that I have nothing against. I just must

insist that I do not feel bound to many

of

the literal

implications of Fodor s modularity theory, at least not

in this context. I also have to remark that, in the same

way that Freud did, cognitive neuropsychologists in

terpret the symptoms of aphasia psychologically rather

than physiologically. As some cognitive neuropsy

chologists would say (but I would not go so far), Ev

erything may well happen in the elbow rather than in

the brain.

I ll

take the opportunity here to deal with the

issue

of

innateness. Modell quotes Karmiloff-Smith in

an attempt to argue against the idea

of

innate func

tions. Whatever the merits of Karmiloff-Smith s argu

ments, her criticism of

Fodor s theory is not

particularly well taken (and, I believe, entirely unnec

essary to her theories). It gives a biased description

of

modularity theory. The typical argument (often re

peated, I am afraid, in the early years of cognitive

neuropsychology by some of the British representa

tives) uses reading capacity s an example. This capac

ity, it is claimed, cannot be sustained by innate

modules because most

of

humanity has been illiterate

until a few decades ago. Evolution would not have

had the time. This is plain nonsense. Reading may

have recruited visual capacities which evolved for

other purposes-for example, the one distinguishing

single patterns (like single letters) in a whole, or alter

natively, the one able to distinguish organized clusters

(like a whole word). I speculate that, since even emo

tional behavior has regularities that do not escape a

single neurologically intact human individual, there

must be some space to inherit behavioral patterns.

Ethology provides examples in animals.

I think it may not be improper or too unorthodox

to wonder whether some of

the functions psycho

analysis has discovered are innate, activated uncon

sciously, run automatically, and cannot be worked

upon except at considerable cost, and so on. These

would be the characteristics of modules, evolved to

make mind functioning more efficient. Of course these

would not be functions that Fodor would have thought

of s modular. He would have relegated them to the

nonmodular, central systems. But I believe that

neuropsychology has effectively demonstrated that

functions like calculation, considered by Fodor s

nonmodular, are instead vis-a-vis pathological find

ings, better viewed as modularly organized. I do not

Carlo Semenza

see why, in principle, this could not be the case for

functions of psychoanalytic interest.

Response to Saling

Saling seems to elaborate on my view that there is not

much to learn from localization for the purposes of

neuropsychoanalysis, not even that which

is

per

formed via the new techniques. The interesting phe

nomenon to observe is indeed dissociation. As I said,

for psychoanalysis the prima facie interesting dissocia

tions are those concerning different long-term mem

ory systems. Since Saling mentions short-term

memory, I ll take the opportunity to expand upon what

I argued in the general response.

A newly described component

of

the short-term

(working) memory system is, alongside the three al

ready described components (the central executive, the

visuospatial sketch-pad, and the articulatory loop), the

episodic buffer. This system is a limited capacity

temporary storage system, presumably located in the

frontal lobe, and, unlike episodic long-term memory,

it is preserved in amnesia. It is capable of integrating

information from a variety of sources, and serves the

purpose

of

reflecting on that information, manipulat

ing and modifying it. The episodic buffer acts under

the control

of

the central executive, whose guidance

is necessary to retrieve single episodes in the form

of

conscious awareness. According to Baddeley (2000),

this system provides a mechanism for creating new

cognitive representations and may play a special role

in separating accurate from false memories. This sys

tem may be interesting to consider vis-a-vis several

processes in psychoanalysis. In the patient-analyst in

teraction, for example, the content

of

the two episodic

buffers

is

shared and ultimately allows construction

of semantic memory. They may influence each other

in interesting ways, to be theorized in neuropsychoa

nalysis.

Response to Turnbull

Again, I must repeat that I did not contend that Freud

founded cognitive neuropsychology. And I am entirely

neutral about what Freud would have done if he con

tinued to be a neuropsychologist.

Solms s theory (quoted by Turnbull) that Freud

lacked the concept of the functional system, in the

sense popularized by Luria, has some loose similarity

with my theory that he lacked the concepts

of

cogni-


9/9


tive psychology. Both

us believe that

he

lacked,

rather than neurophysiological notions, some theoreti

cal means. I think, however, that with only Lur ia s

concept,

which I believe he had some intuition, he

would not have gone so far.

Turnbull is not afraid speculation, and takes

the chance wondering why Freud did not investi

gate the biological basis the psychological topics

that were interest to him. This

is

an interesting

question. I would not be that quick to take for granted

the fact that Freud was interested more in the neuro

psychology emotion than in the neuropsychology

cognition. Especially since phenomena like those

mentioned by Kinsbourne (and by Marshall) were

more or less under the observation his contemporar

ies. And,

as

Solms and Saling (1986) have aptly re

minded us, he was familiar with the work

Hughlings

Jackson. He chose instead to work on aphasia.

Turnbull nicely displays his argument

in

the style

a detective story. He carefully examines means,

motive, and opportunity. This does not lead him to

firm or particularly interesting conclusions. Just to

play along, I may add another, perhaps trivial, consid

eration. I suspect that since he got involved in devel

oping psychoanalysis, Freud was happy enough with

that; i t was his own creature. He wanted to provide a

more solid possible basis for it. Expanding his theori

zation to what we call neuropsychoanalysis, which he

may have perceived (at that time)

as

marginal, would

have taken too much energy (and perhaps unwise

doses cocaine), even for the immensely energetic

person that he was. Luckily, he left that task for us.

References

Baddeley, A. (2000), The episodic buffer. A new compo

nent working memory?

Trends in Cognit. Sci.,

4(11):417-423.

Brown, J. W. (1988),

The Life

the Mind.

Hillsdale, NJ:

Lawrence Erlbaum.

Fonagy, P. (1999), Memory and therapeutic action. In

ternat.

Psycho-Anal., 80:215-223.

Freud, S. (1919), On the teaching

psychoanalysis in uni

versities.

Standard Edition,

17:169-173. London: Ho

garth Press, 1985.

Geschwind,N. (1965), Disconnection syndromes in animals

and man.

Brain, 88:585-644.

Kandel,

E

(1999), Biology and the future psychoanaly

sis.

new intellectual framework for psychiatry revis

ited.

Amer.

Psychiatry, 156 4 :505-524.

Semenza, (1996), Methodological issues. In:

The Black

well Dictionary Neuropsychology,

ed. G. Beaumont,

P. M. Kenealy, M. J C. Rogers. Oxford: Blackwell,

pp. 215-225.

Bisiacchi,

P

S., Rosenthal, V (1988), A function

for cognitive neuropsychology. In: Perspectives on Cog

nitive Neuropsychology,

ed. G. Deres, Semenza, P.

S Bisiacchi. Howe, U.K.: Lawrence Erlbaum, pp. 10-42.

Solms, M., Saling, M. (1986), On psychoanalysis and

neuroscience: Freud s attitude to the local izationist

method.

Interna

Psycho-Anal., 67:397-411.

Department

Psychology

University Trieste

Via S Anastasio, 12

34100, Trieste, Italy

e-mail: [email protected]

Documents

10 Response to Commentaries by Carlo Semenza (Trieste)