<aside> 💡 Prof Mark Solms is a neuropsychologist and psychoanalyst known for pioneering the field of neuropsychoanalysis. He discovered that dreaming depends on forebrain mechanisms rather than REM sleep and has worked extensively on the neural basis of consciousness. Prof Solms is Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town, co-founder of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis, and author of several influential books, including The Hidden Spring: A Journey to the Source of Consciousness (2021). In collaboration with Karl Friston, he has helped link neuropsychoanalytic ideas to the free energy principle, developing theoretical models that explain affect, motivation, and consciousness in terms of predictive processing and the brain’s drive to minimise uncertainty.

</aside>

<aside> 💡

John Dall’Aglio is a PhD candidate in Clinical Psychology at Duquesne University whose work focuses on the intersection of Lacanian psychoanalysis and neuroscience (i.e. Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis). He is the author of A Lacanian Neuropsychoanalysis: Consciousness Enjoying Uncertainty and has published on topics such as the free energy principle, jouissance, transcendental materialism, and the philosophic-theoretical foundations of neuropsychoanalysis.

</aside>

https://youtu.be/C0DeGaOsL_Y

References

https://youtu.be/s7J1FLZUg3A?si=QrWK8KjsyJMj-N8J

https://www.youtube.com/live/b8meLjc8XHE?si=9yHwVttYhYjVcoAT

https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-68831-7

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53642061-the-hidden-spring

• As an introduction, while I know you’ve already written and spoken about this extensively, I’d love to hear about how Prof Solms became interested in Freud and psychoanalysis, coming from a neuroscience background?

  • Before coming across Dall’Aglio’s Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis, I’m curious what Prof Solms’ views were on Lacan and Lacanian theory?

• Likewise, could John share how he became interested in neuropsychoanalysis as a Lacanian? Or was it the other way around?

• As was Freud’s aim, can psychology and, by extension, psychoanalysis be a natural science?

  • Or should these be spoken of as different Wittgensteinian “language games” or even epistemologies?

• What is the goal of psychoanalysis?

• Is the neuropsychoanalytic subject different to the Lacanian subject, le sujet?

• From John:

  

  • What is the role of language, which is central in Lacanian theory for neuropsychoanalysis?
  • The role of fantasy.
  • John mentioned his article Extending the theory of premature automatization.

• What does John mean by “Consciousness Enjoying Uncertainty”?

• How do Lacanian concepts, real, symbolic, and imaginary, etc., map to neuropsychoanalysis?

  • Following on, how do Lacanian theories, e.g., l'objet petit a, big Other, etc., if ever, map to neuroscientific theories? Is it even worth exploring this mapping?

• What does neuropsychoanalysis say about Freud’s death drive and his text Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920)?

• Are feelings conscious or unconscious? It seems to me Prof Solms posits that feelings have to necessarily be conscious for them to register subjectively. Could the same be said for the concept of desire in Lacanian psychoanalysis?

Free energy principle (FEP) & computational neuroscience