The historical Freudand today’s developmental

orientation

Freud conference- Melbourne- May 20, 2006

Courtesy Carter-Jenkins Center

Born May 6, 1856

From Gamwell, L. and Solms, M., 2006

Freud’s early dream

• Understanding links between neurobiology and mental activity

• A developmental understanding

D E V E L O P M E N TAL T R A N S I T I O N S

BIRTH

2-3 5-8 10-13 18-22 3-4 5-7 mos mos mos mos yrs yrs

Outline

• Commemorating Freud– The use of the past– Freud’s dream – A personal connection

• Developmental updates- from Freud to today• A developmental orientation• Example of early moral development • Developmental orientation and therapeutic action• Brain imaging and mental functioning• Conclusion- reaching Freud’s dream

Freud’s developmental contributions

• Then – Early development-

sequences

– Unconscious

– Past-present

– Mastery

– Early moral development

• Now– Increasingly organized

complexity

– Procedural/implicit

– Future orientation

– Mode of development

– Expanded view of morality

A developmental orientation

• Lifelong- ongoing

• Increasing organization

• Context dependent- intimate relationships– Early formative– Later

• Future oriented

• Open

Early Moral Development

• First year– Imitations & observations of social behavior– Sharing and regulation of emotions

– Reciprocity, turn taking– Rules, routines

• “grammars” of expectations about social behavior (procedural knowledge)

• Second year– Empathy, prosocial behavior– Distress on violation of standards– Prohibitions

• New rules• Early strategies for negotiation

Early Moral Development

• Third and Fourth Years– TOM skills (appreciating other minds)

• Feelings• Beliefs• Perspectives• Experiences of conflicts and of resolutions

– Narrative skills• Telling about experiences to others not there• New possibilities; perceptions of alternatives for action

– Strategies of not telling, not feeling and avoiding perspectives of others

– Anger and aggression management skills– Conflict management and negotiation

Therapeutic aspects of a developmental orientation

• Background developmental processes• New beginnings

– Re-experiencing– Confirming useful continuities– New possibilities

• Therapeutic action- 2 dimensions• Many questions

FrontiersFrontiers

Some frontiers for clinical thinking and research

• Practicing in new relationship contexts

• Expectations, emotional bonds and suggestion- a return to Freud’s dream

Thinking about brain functioning and mental activity

• Empathy

• Placebo effects

• Expectations

• Romantic love and maternal love

• Mirror neurons– Linking to emotions– Linking to intentions

Singer et al., Science (2004)

How do we understand placebo effects?

They are powerful!!!

Placebo reduces reported pain and brain activity-I

• Shock (R wrist) vs. no shock– Activates the “pain matrix”

• Thalamus (T) • Somatosensory cortex (SII, SI)• Insula (I or AI)• Anterior cingulate cortex (ACC)

Wager et al., Science (2004)

Placebo reduces reported pain and brain activity II

• Placebo cream vs. non placebo cream– Reported pain greater for control (C) than

placebo (P)– Amount of placebo reported analgesia

correlated with reduction of neural activity during the shock period

– Also true for thermal pain in a separate study with more complex time effects

Placebo effect: behavior-brain correlations in shock experiment

• rACC .66

• IC .59

• Thal (cl) .53

• (n= 24; all significant P< 0.005)

Anticipation of painful shock in placebo condition increases prefrontal activity

• Correlations between fMRI activity in anticipation period (P>C) and reported placebo effects (C>P)– DLPFC .62, .62– OFC .65, .76

• Correlations between fMRI activity in anticipation period and components of pain matrix– For DLPFC: T (-.56,-.38), I (-.59,-26),rACC (-.44, -.45)– For OFC: T (-.52,-.63), I (-.61,-.56),rACC (-.65,-.70)

The Neural Correlates Of Maternal And Romantic Love

Bartels, A. and Zeki, S., 2004, NeuroImage

Welcome Dept of Imaging Neuroscience, UCL

Conclusions (Bartels and Zeki, NeuroImage,)

• For both M and R love similar brain regions activated– Striatum (P, GP, CN)– Middle insula– Dorsal ACC

• Activity in these areas known to have high density of vasopressin and oxytocin receptors (mediating attachment and reward)

• Both M and R love deactivate areas in PFC and temporal poles referred to as “social judgment network”

More generally, our brains are built

• “wired” for feelings

• “wired” for connectedness

• In infants as well as parents

The surprising story of mirror neurons

In observing and participating socially the brain is building

expectations about feelings and about intentions, over time, about self in relation to significant others

What about Freud’s dream? Are we envisioning the links? Are we reaching

a developmental understanding?

• Conclusions: – There is much promise– And there is another frontier of our

knowledge, to be illustrated in the next talk…

A Coda

We have come a long way from this

And there are many questions

Website for downloadable publications

www.uchsc.edu/earlydev

A rethinking

• The developing individual in a changing environment

• (The fish is in the water, the water in the fish- Arthur Miller)

Regulation

(From Sameroff, A.J. and Fiese, B.H., 2000)

Readings (Available electronically on web) www.uchsc.edu/earlydev/

Emde, R. N., & Spicer, P. (2000). Experience in the midst of variation: New

horizons for development and psychopathology, Development and Psychopathology, 12, 313-331).

Emde, R. N., Korfmacher, J., & Kubicek, L. F. (2000). Toward a theory of early

relationship-based intervention. In J. D. Osofsky, & H. E. Fitzgerald (Eds.), WAIMH Handbook of infant mental health. Vol. Two. Early intervention, evaluation, and assessment (pp. 3-32). New York: John Wiley and Sons

Emde, R. N., & Robinson, J. L. (2000). Guiding principles for a theory of early

intervention: A developmental-psychoanalytic perspective. In J. P. Shonkoff, & S. J. Meisels (Eds.), Handbook of early childhood intervention. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Emde, R. N. (1999). Moving ahead: Integrating influences of affective

processes for development and for psychoanalysis. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 80(2), 317-339.

Emde, R. N. (1998). Early emotional development: New modes of thinking for

research and intervention. In J. G. Warhol (Ed.), New perspectives in early emotional development. Johnson & Johnson Pediatric Institute.

Creative writers and day-dreaming 1908

• "a wish makes use of an occasion in the present to construct, on the pattern of the past, a picture of the future."

• "....thus past, present, and future are strung together....on the thread of the wish that runs through them"