A Neuropsychodynamic Perspective on the Self

Abstract

The aim of this chapter is to sketch the boundaries of a field that does not exist: neuropsychodynamics. To many in mainstream social and clinical psychology, an emphasis on the neurological determinants of higher mental functions may seem passe or chic, depending on one’s generation. Regardless, such an emphasis can often be dismissed with unflinching application of the term reductionism. Raising the eyebrows further is the linkage to psychodynamics. A major undercurrent in the last 20 years of research in social and clinical psychology has been the attempt to expropriate much of the subject matter of psychoanalysis—for example, the study of affective-cognitive interactions, cognitive distortions, defensive processes, self-schema, etc.—without incorporating what is often perceived as unnecessary, and, in fact, detrimental metatheoretical assumptions about the nature of consciousness and of scientific inquiry.