Neuropsychoanalysis
Mark Smaller is
Director of the
Neuro-Psychoanalysis Foundation in
New York and London.
Neuro-Psychoanalysis: The Mind, The Brain - Our mission
Messages from
the Director of the Neuro-Psychoanalysis
Foundation, New York
September 6,
2007
January, 31 2006
November 4th, 2005
September
6, 2007
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
I was recently interviewed for a
Revolution Health podcast about the
impact of depression on college
students, especially those going away
from home for the first time (Revolution
Health is an online medical health
information site: http://www.revolutionhealth.com).
What are symptoms students and parents
should watch for? What is the difference
between a normal adjustment for student
living away from home for the first time
and a serious depression that requires
treatment? How can parents help? What
makes students reluctant to seek help?
What is the most effective treatment
intervention? Is medication alone
enough?
How serious is this health issue?
Consider the following. Suicide is the
third leading cause of death among high
school students, and second among
college students. 40 % of college male
students and 50% of college female
students have reported symptoms of
depression so severe that they could
barely function. 12 million children in
the U.S. alone suffer from undiagnosed
mental illness. Depression, not only in
the U.S. but worldwide, might be one of
the major health issues we face - and
often the one least understood,
researched, or treated.
At our 8th Annual Congress in Vienna on
Neuropsychoanalytic Perspectives on
Depression, and at the Hope For
Depression Research Foundation Seminar
earlier in that week, our neuroscience
colleagues challenged us. Can
psychoanalysts offer theoretical
concepts and treatment interventions to
be tested? Are we committed to
understanding the evolution of
consciousness and the brain? Such
knowledge can only advance our theories
of the mind and the unconscious, and so
our therapeutic interventions enabling
us to provide more effective work with
those desperately in need of our help.
Andrew Solomon, one of our opening guest
speakers in Vienna and author of Noonday
Demon, spoke powerfully and personally
of his debilitating experience with
severe depression. But he also spoke of
how in working at his illness he “loved
who he became.” He has written that,
Depression is the flaw in love. To be
creatures who love, we must be creatures
who can despair at what we lose, and
depression is the mechanism of that
despair. Love, though it is no
prophylactic against depression, is what
cushions the mind and protects it from
itself. Medications and psychotherapy
can renew that protection, making it
easier to love and be loved, and that is
why they work. (The Noonday Demon)
Though not a scientist, Solomon
captured, in his remarks, the essence of
our neuropsychoanalytic work: the mind
and the brain are one but when they fail
to work together they cannot ensure that
we are able, in the words of Freud - the
original neurospsychoanalyst - “to love
and work”.
While in Vienna I was often approached
by young researchers telling me about
innovative ideas for neuropsychoanalytic
research for which they are in need of
support. With your help, we can make
that research happen. The desperate need
for effective treatments is all the more
critical when depression and other
mental health illnesses have such tragic
consequences on people’s lives.
Psychoanalysis, as a science and as a
profession, must continue to provide
that treatment.
For those of you who have already
donated we thank you and hope you will
continue your valuable support for the
coming year. To new donors, we want to
underscore that it is not how much you
give that helps us, but rather that you
participate in any way you can.
Best wishes and warm regards for the
coming year. And, if you didn’t make to
Vienna, we look forward to seeing you
next summer in Montreal.
Mark D. Smaller, Ph.D.
Director, Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation
msmaller@aol.com
Click here to make a donation
New York: The Neuropsychoanalysis
Foundation, Apt 7B, 1185 Park Avenue,
New York, NY 10128, USA.
London: The International
Neuropsychoanalysis Centre, 13 Prowse
Place, London NW1 9PN, UK.
January, 31 2006
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
THE YEAR OF FREUD AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT
During the meetings of the American
Psychoanalytic Association in New York last
week, I attended a plenary that included two
neuroscientists, Antonio Damasio and Joseph
LeDoux; and three psychoanalysts, our own Ed
Nersessian (moderator), Arnold Modell,
Bonnie Litowitz, and Wilma Bucci. During the
discussion, a friend of mine whispered:
"only a short time ago this panel would have
been in one of the seminar rooms, not in the
Empire Room Ballroom at the
Waldorf-Astoria".
I wondered if this panel would ever have
occurred had it not been for those meetings
in the early 1990's in Marjorie and the late
Arnold Pfeffer's living room that included
Mark Solms, Jimmy Schwartz, Ed Nersessian
and others.
Neuro-psychoanalysis was born, our Journal
Neuro-Psychoanalysis was launched and the
International Neuro-Psychoanalysis Society
was founded. These groundbreaking efforts
were the result of an enormous amount of
personal energy, time and funds contributed
by those who were committed to our mission
and its role in the future of
psychoanalysis.
These people believed that neuro-psychoanalysis
would develop and transform Freud's work
making it even more useful and effective to
the many who suffer from psychological
symptoms, to children inappropriately
diagnosed, or to the brain injured patients
who sometimes are treated as if they have no
personhood or self. As Mark Solms
continually reminds us, "The brain is a
unique organ - it's not a liver. It has
agency. It has subjectivity. It has soul.”
I also found myself reminding friends and
colleagues at the meetings of the Neuro-Psychoanalysis
Society's "Year of Freud", with our May 6th
events in New York, our research, our 7th
Annual Congress in Los Angeles this summer
and our fundraising efforts. People know
what we are doing, are enthusiastic and want
to know more.
To date, we have raised close to $100,000
since last May when we began, and for this
we thank many of you who have contributed.
Our Research Fellowships, projects and
programs are essential, and expensive. One
part-time Fellowship alone costs
$25-$35,000. We need your help toward our
goal of 100% participation of our members in
this first Annual Campaign that will end at
our July Congress in Los Angeles.
Our acknowledging Freud's 150th Birthday is
about celebrating not only his work, but
also our own. I keep wondering how Freud
would respond to what we have accomplished.
Years ago while taking piano lessons for the
first time as an adult, I was destroying a
piece by Bach; I said to my teacher that
Bach would spin in his grave if he knew how
horribly I was playing his music. "No", my
teacher said, "he would be moved that after
all these years you still wanted to play his
music."
I believe Freud, perhaps uncomfortable with
the attention, would be moved by our
efforts. Help us carry on this work.
Warm regards, Mark
Mark D. Smaller, Ph.D.
Director, Neuro-Psychoanalysis Foundation
1185 Park Avenue #7B
New York, New York 10128
U.S.A.
msmaller@aol.com
www.neuro-psa.org
Click here to make a donation
London: The International
Neuro-Psychoanalysis Centre, 21 Maresfield
Gardens, London NW3 5SD, UK
New York: The Neuro-Psychoanalysis
Foundation, Apt 7B, 1185 Park Avenue, New
York, NY 10128, USA.
November 4th, 2005
Dear Friends and Colleagues,
The Chicago White Sox had the best record in
the American League right up to the
playoffs. Yet critics and doubters said they
would not make it to the playoffs, much less
win a Pennant, and certainly not the World
Series.
On October 26th the Sox became World
Champions sweeping the Series with 4
straight wins over the Houston Astros.
Neuro-psychoanalysis, though a young ‘team’
continues to have its critics and doubters.
Consider these quotes from a recent
discussion on a members list of the American
Psychoanalytic Association:
“We say that mind emerges from brain in
order to pretend that we know something
about the mind-brain relationship that in
fact we don't know. We only believe it.”
“What happens between two people when they
meet depends on so many immeasurable things
that determine if they will become friends,
lovers, patients, enemies, non-entities etc.
Will neuroscience contribute or take us on a
detour to discovering who is amenable to
analytic work?”
“I think we sometimes lose sight of the fact
that most of the neuroscientific research
done these days is being used to promote an
ideology that treats not only symptoms but
also disturbing emotions as devoid of
significant personal meanings.”
“Not that the brain is not involved in
processes of growth and development, but
that the guiding force for this growth and
development is very difficult to locate
within the brain.”
Your support for our research and voice in
the analytic community and beyond is needed
now more than ever. We can answer those
uninformed about who we are and what
empirical research we are doing.
For the many of you who have already given,
a big “Thank you.”
For those who have not, please help us
attain our goal of 100% participation in our
first Annual Campaign.
Of course all those White Sox critics and
doubters are now saying what a great team
the Sox are, and, what Henry James would
have predicted, “that they knew it all
along.”
Those of us committed to neuro-psychoanalysis
and psychoanalysis want the same result.
Join us.
We look forward to seeing you in Los Angeles
at our 7th Annual Congress, July
21-23rd,2006.
Best regards…Mark D. Smaller
Director, Neuro-Psychoanalysis Foundation
Click here to make a donation
London: The International Neuro-Psychoanalysis
Centre, 21 Maresfield Gardens, London NW3
5SD, UK
New York: The Neuro-Psychoanalysis
Foundation, Apt 7B, 1185 Park Avenue, New
York, NY 10128, USA.