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Challenges of a debate between psychoanalysis and neurosciences about brain imaging

This contribution examines some possible interactions between the neurosciences and psychoanalysis. The goal is to specify the particularities of psychoanalytic investigation of technology, specifically regarding brain imaging, and question its basic assumptions. Taking into account all the aspects of this medical procedure, we find that interdisciplinary approach enables us to define the boundaries of the field of observation. This dialogue wants to keep the singularity of each epistemological position. The biological methodology can't explicate what is unconscious. In fact researchers in Neuroscience seem confuse unconscious and preconscious processes. The risk could be to lose the specificity of what psychoanalysis can bring in interdisciplinary debate. The hypothesis of a new unconscious, as developed by Lionel Naccache, is also discussed and tested by clinical experience. The author argues that a dialogue between psychoanalysis and the neurosciences appears especially fruitful if we seek to unambiguously delimit and precise its exact field and methods.

medical imaging; neurosciences; psychoanalysis; interdisciplinary; drive scopique


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