Some aspects of brain-mind relationship.

Abstract

One of the most interesting parallels between the functioning of brain and mind is provided by Hughlings Jackson's Doctrine of Dissolution and Freud's theory of psychological regression. Basically, they each imply that under certain circumstances the organism partially or wholly reverts to an earlier stage of functional organization, the one in the bodily and the other in the mental sphere. At first sight the parallel would seem to end here, for neurological dissolution is usually regarded as a passive process, an unmasking of lower levels of functioning by organic disease, while regresson consists of an active withdrawal to an earlier stage of mental development, usually, but not always, brought about by difficulties in external adjustment. Nevertheless, we can attempt a reconciliation between the two if we regard the ‘positive” symptoms of nervous dissolution as representing attempts on the part of a crippled nervous system to adjust to a normal environment. Viewed from this angle both neurological dissolution and psychological regression present themselves as dynamic reactions to stress, promoted in the one instance by internal and in the other by external difficulties. That the two mechanisms are in fact related is suggested by two facts: first, that the symptoms of nervous dissolution can be made worse by environmental difficulties (Cf. Goldstein's “catastrophic reaction”), and second, that regression occurs regularly in sleep, which is surely organically determined.