Can the Protomental System provide a new foundation for psychoanalytic theory? Constructing a Mind draws on psychoanalytic theories of mind and recent developments in cognitive science to present the Protomental System, a new and original explanatory theory of the development of the human mind. This book aims to move psychoanalytic theory away from its origins in Freud's theory, towards a model which gives priority to cognition and memory. This, Antonio Imbasciati argues, will make possible a successful and productive integration of psychoanalysis with other areas of psychology. Subjects covered include: The mind as an information-processing system Constructing the system: from fetus to baby, child, and finally adult The caregiver relationship as a decoding system for information processing The paranoid-schizoid metabolism of information Memory of functions and memory traces of affects Internal information generated by the system The depressive position and learning to know Reparation and thought. This thoughtful and thorough account of cognitive development provides a conceptual framework that succeeds in making some of the more complex areas of psychoanalytic theory more intelligible. Constructing a Mind will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and cognitive psychologists, especially those with an interest in neuropsychology and neonatal development.
In this book, the author criticises the isolationism of traditional psychoanalytic associations, compared to those of other branches of psychology, and their suspicion of neuroscience. Today, affective neuroscience is investigating the unconscious affects, which psychoanalysis has always done with different methods and a different language. The author points out how Freud's energy-drive theory, although contradicted by scientific progress, has continued to characterise, a religiousness underpinning the spirit of psychoanalytic institutions: the icon of Freud. This spirit is accompanied by confusion between different psychoanalytic theories which are often incompatible with one another. The author blames the poor social image that psychoanalysis has earned in the past few years on this confusion of theories and haughty withdrawal into a single presumed orthodoxy. A former President of the IPA, Otto Kernberg, has even predicted the suicide of psychoanalytic institutions. The author has addressed this chaos of theories throughout his life, integrating work on psychoanalysis, experimental psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive science, attachment theory and now neuroscience.
Can the Protomental System provide a new foundation for psychoanalytic theory? Constructing a Mind draws on psychoanalytic theories of mind and recent developments in cognitive science to present the Protomental System, a new and original explanatory theory of the development of the human mind. This book aims to move psychoanalytic theory away from its origins in Freud's theory, towards a model which gives priority to cognition and memory. This, Antonio Imbasciati argues, will make possible a successful and productive integration of psychoanalysis with other areas of psychology. Subjects covered include: The mind as an information-processing system Constructing the system: from fetus to baby, child, and finally adult The caregiver relationship as a decoding system for information processing The paranoid-schizoid metabolism of information Memory of functions and memory traces of affects Internal information generated by the system The depressive position and learning to know Reparation and thought. This thoughtful and thorough account of cognitive development provides a conceptual framework that succeeds in making some of the more complex areas of psychoanalytic theory more intelligible. Constructing a Mind will be of great interest to psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and cognitive psychologists, especially those with an interest in neuropsychology and neonatal development.
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