Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing: Mark Solms on Psychoanalysis Today #91

Jun 3

About this episode

Dr. Mark Solms joins Doorknob Comments to discuss his book The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing. Rather than treating Freud as a historical figure to be defended or discarded, Solms asks what happens when Freud’s central questions are translated into the language of contemporary neuroscience.

The conversation moves from Freud’s early neurological work to functional neurological disorders, the subjective point of view, emotional drives, consciousness, TMS, deep brain stimulation, free association, and the evidence base for psychoanalytic psychotherapy. Throughout, Solms argues for an integrated psychiatry that does not split biological and psychological care into opposing camps. Instead, he makes the case for a functional understanding of the mind: one that can include brain stimulation, psychotherapy, subjective experience, unconscious memory, and the developmental work of healing.

Topics covered

Psychoanalysis, Freud, Neuroscience, Neuropsychoanalysis, Subjectivity

Guest Profile

Mark Solms, PhD, is a psychoanalyst, neuropsychologist, and one of the leading figures in neuropsychoanalysis. He holds the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital, in the departments of psychology and neurology, and serves as Training Director of the South African Psychoanalytical Association.

Solms founded the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 2000 and was a founding editor of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. He is also Director of Science of the American Psychoanalytic Association, Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation in New York, and a trustee of the Neuropsychoanalysis Fund in London.

He has published widely across neuroscience and psychoanalysis, including The Neuropsychology of Dreams, Clinical Studies in Neuropsychoanalysis, The Brain and the Inner World, The Hidden Spring, and The Only Cure: Freud and the Neuroscience of Mental Healing. He is also the editor of the revised standard edition of Freud’s complete psychological works.

https://x.com/Mark_Solms

https://npsa-association.org/

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