MISUNDERSTANDINGS

FROM THE NEUROSCIENCE

 

In preparation for my next work, Unconscious Thinking, I recently read, The
Neuropsychology of the Unconscious: Integrating Brain and Mind In
Psychotherapy (2015).  Written by a psychoanalyst, Efrat Ginot, she wrote a
book attempting to integrate psychoanalysis with the current trends in the
neuro-sciences.  It seems that she has several objectives in mind as she
wrote the book.  One was to update psychoanalysis and reframe some of the
doctrines of Sigmund Freud to make them more acceptable today.  I thought
she was creative and insightful in that.  Another objective was to integrate
some of the new things in psychotherapy such as reframing and narrative
therapy.  She mentioned a few things outside of traditional psychoanalysis.

 

There is also her attempt to use the neurosciences as the all-validating
source of everything she proposes.  But while doing that, she often fails to
distinguish some of her guesses with what the neurosciences have actually
discovered.  While I like what she did with her title by separating "brain"
and "mind," in the text itself, she did not separate them.  Most of the time
she wrote "brain/mind" thereby confusing the two.

 

Now as if confusing those two phenomena did not contribute enough confusion,
she constantly wrote that this or that anatomy of the brain would "think"
this, "conclude" that, "figure out" X, "understand" Y, etc.  For example,
"The amygdala mediates both cognitive appraisal of threats as well as
emotions of fear and rage."  Here the person cognitively appraises something
as a threat which then shows up as fear or rage, but she writes as if the
amygdala does it!  So where's the person?

 

That's like saying, "The engine drove us to Susie's house."  "The
transmission brought us to a standstill at the red light."  By confusing the
brain with the mind, this author writes as if she assumes that by knowing
the brain parts-thalamus, hypothalamus, prefrontal cortex, medial temporal
lobe, etc.-you then know what the person is thinking, concluding, believing,
etc.  But the brain is the hardware for the mind, and not the mind itself.
She writes: "The unconscious systems left to their own devices, they do not
'learn' from reality" (67).

 

Actually, it is the person who thinks, believes, learns, and appraises
meaning, not the brain.  Certainly it is true that when there's damage in
certain parts of the brain, we will not have the necessary neurological
resources to do certain things.  Damage to the Werke section leads to
various linguistic problems, aphasias.

 

Yet this author pictures things operating within the human person as if it
operates only by the neurology processes, and that it does not occur via
cognition or linguistics.  "Much of what the brain learns occurs without
awareness and without the help of the neocortex."  Actually it is not the
brain that does the learning, it is the mind-the person's mind.  It is the
person who has a brain that learns, the brain provides the neurological
basis for learning.

 

She quotes Bounomano, a neuro-scientist, "Much of what we learn is absorbed
unconsciously as a result of the brain's tendency to link concepts that
occur together." (2011, p. 183).  Here again the idea is that it is the
brain that does this, not the person.

 

In writing about the neurological basis of thinking, she writes that it is
within the lower brain nerve centers in the sub-cortical regions (e.g.,
brain stem, midbrain, basal ganglia, limbic system, cerebellum, thalamus,
hippocampus, amygdala) that thinking begins.  Yet this is where she confuses
the information processes of the brain with what a person does, namely,
thinks.

 

There are good sections in the book.  She writes that "The amygdala mediates
both cognitive appraisal of threats as well as emotions of fear and rage.
Affect and cognition always work together.   As determined by evolution, the
brain's default position is to learn, especially in the service of
adaptation and survival." (p. 24).  Well, not exactly, the brain processes
information and because we all learn different things and conclude different
things, the brain only provides the data, you and I interpret it and give it
meaning.

 

What seems today to be the new fad is to accredit "the neurosciences" as
substantiating just about anything we wish were true in the human mind and
personality.  All you have to do is quote some research from "the
neurosciences" and that seems to tidy up all questions about legitimacy.
But, of course, in truth, it does not.  What's often asserted is still just
the most current best hypothesis of the writer and give it another six
months and all of that may change.  It's always good to "test all things,
hold fast to that which is good."