How Does Our Brain Constitute Defense Mechanisms? First-Person Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis

Abstract

Current progress in the cognitive and affective neurosciences is constantly influencing the development of psychoanalytic theory and practice. However, despite the emerging dialogue between neuroscience and psychoanalysis, the neuronal processes underlying psychoanalytic constructs such as defense mechanisms remain unclear. One of the main problems in investigating the psychodynamic-neuronal relationship consists in systematically linking the individual contents of first-person subjective experience to third-person observation of neuronal states. We therefore introduced an appropriate methodological strategy, ‘first-person neuroscience’, which aims at developing methods for systematically linking first- and third-person data. The utility of first-person neuroscience can be demonstrated by the example of the defense mechanism of sensorimotor regression as paradigmatically observed in catatonia. Combined psychodynamic and imaging studies suggest that sensorimotor regression might be associated with dysfunction in the neural network including the orbitofrontal, the medial prefrontal and the premotor cortices. In general sensorimotor regression and other defense mechanisms are psychoanalytic constructs that are hypothesized to be complex emotional-cognitive constellations. In this paper we suggest that specific functional mechanisms which integrate neuronal activity across several brain regions (i.e. neuronal integration) are the physiological substrates of defense mechanisms. We conclude that first-person neuroscience could be an appropriate methodological strategy for opening the door to a better understanding of the neuronal processes of defense mechanisms and their modulation in psychoanalytic psychotherapy.

Neuroimaging for psychotherapy research: Current trends

“…Neuroimaging studies of interpersonal or social cognition comprise one of the most important current fields of inquiry in the neurosciences, and there is a wealth of information from social cognitive neuroimaging that may be useful for psychotherapy researchers (Carhart-Harris et al, 2008; Fonagy & Target, 2007; Gallese et al, 2007; Hruby et al, 2011; Northoff et al, 2007; Siever & Weinstein, 2009; Weston & Gabbard, 2002a, 2002b). Nonetheless, more empirical studies of patient-therapist interactions would be useful.…”

“…Carrig, Kolden, and Strauman (2009) have provided an introduction for psychotherapy researchers to one of the most commonly employed MRI approaches in psychology, namely, functional MRI (fMRI). Finally, there have been reviews that show how neuroimaging studies from outside psychotherapy research per se can contribute to a neuroscience of psychotherapy (Carhart-Harris, Mayberg, Malizia, & Nutt, 2008; DeRubeis, Siegle, & Hollon, 2008; Disner, Beevers, Haigh, & Beck, 2011; Fonagy & Target, 2007; Gallese, Eagle, & Migone, 2007; Northoff, Bermpohl, Schoeneich, & Boeker, 2007; Siever & Weinstein, 2009; Weston & Gabbard, 2002a, 2002b). These reviews covered a range of complex topics including psychoanalytic and cognitive models of depression, interpersonal relationships, attachment theory, defense mechanisms, personality disorders, ego and id, schemas, and transference.…”

Personality disorder in adolescence

“…The brain continues to develop throughout adolescence in terms of myelination and formation of synaptic networks (Rice 2000), which implies that the neural bases for many psychoregulatory systems will still be in development. Such systems will not be fully functional or yet fully 'calibrated' to the individual's needs or environment, and may be expressed as immature psychological defenses such as denial or somatisation (Heilbrunn 1979;Northoff 2007). The development of the frontal lobe may continue to be influenced by the nature of attachment relationships in adolescence, which may be subject to change as parents get older or grandparents die (Sunderland 2006).…”

The Syndrome of Catatonia

“…Consideration of catatonia as a defense mechanism with sensorimotor regression was a likely psychoanalytic interpretation. Analytical concepts of catatonia were virtually impossible to confirm [13,14]. Not surprisingly, early psychoanalysts had difficulty treating catatonia.…”