The psychoanalytic process: A systems and information processing model

Rosenblatt, Allan D.; Thickstun, James T.

doi:10.1080/07351698409533531

Cited by 15 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Oppositely, there has been what I feel to be a premature, and also an abortive, effort to transform the declared outmoded 19th‐century energy and structure model of psychoanalytic theory (Freud’s model) into a modern neurophysiologically‐based natural science information theory and cybernetics model of the mind, functioning in a manner analogous to high speed computers. (See in this connection Peterfreund [1971] and Rosenblatt and Thickstün [1977, 1984].) Much of the current psychoanalytic fascination with contemporary neuroscience contains the same aspiration towards a transformation of the general theory of psychoanalysis into a presumably better, neurophysiologically‐grounded (and more accepted) kind of science.…”

Section: Psychoanalysis As Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

What kind of research in psychoanalytic science?

Wallerstein

2009

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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The kind of science that psychoanalysis is (can be), and the kind of research appropriate to it, qualitative and ⁄ or quantitative, have been divisive issues from the very inception of the discipline. I explore in detail the complexity of these issues, definitional and semantic, as well as methodological and substantive. A plea is made for the application of qualitative (idiographic)and quantitative (nomothetic) research methods, each to the extent that is appropriate, separately or in conjunction, across the entire spectrum of research domains in psychoanalysis, empirical, clinical, conceptual, historical, and interdisciplinary.

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Section: Psychoanalysis As Sciencementioning

confidence: 99%

What kind of research in psychoanalytic science?

Wallerstein

2009

The International Journal of Psychoanalysis

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“…Models derived from information system theories make it possible to investigate the conditions of occurrence of psychological phenomena and not the intrinsic nature of the phenomena themselves. Nevertheless, in the 1980s, according to some authors, these information and systems models promised psychoanalytical theory contributions in phase with the contemporary scientific thought where it could have been possible to re-found metapsychology on this new theoretical basis (Peterfreund, 1980;Rosenblatt and Thickstun, 1984). These pioneering projects deserve to be thoroughly reworked at a time when technical devices are closer to patients.…”

Section: The Contribution Of Psychoanalysis To the Analysis Of Data Imentioning

confidence: 99%

The Digital Phenotyping Project: A Psychoanalytical and Network Theory Perspective

Potier

2020

Front. Psychol.

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“…The idea that mind and body, or mind and nervous system, occupy different levels of organization of the same system is not a new idea in psychoanalysis; a number of authors have not only expressed such a viewpoint but also attempted to reformulate some core psychoanalytic concepts from this viewpoint, notably including work by Grossman ( 1992 ), Seligman ( 2005 ) as well as Rosenblatt and Thickstun ( 1970 , 1977 , 1984 ). However, despite these efforts, systems theory epistemology, and recursive organization in particular, has never gained meaningful visibility in the mainstream of psychoanalytic (or neuropsychoanalytic) thinking.…”

Section: Recursive Epistemology and The Problem Of Different Principlmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The generations of work in psychoanalysis to document the principles which seem to influence people's conscious experience and behavior, as well as the insights gained through clinical examination and self-reflection, are understood here as attempts to generate models of the organization of the phenomena of conscious and unconscious processes. These insights (and the models they represent) cannot be abandoned in favor of a far more foundational principle which is the FEP, for much the same reason as we should not abandon the use of the abstractions of integral calculus in favor of using the simpler language of linear algebra, to follow an analogy found in Rosenblatt and Thickstun ( 1984 ).…”

Section: The Limits Of the Fep In Modeling Consciousness And Psychic mentioning

confidence: 99%

Hierarchical Recursive Organization and the Free Energy Principle: From Biological Self-Organization to the Psychoanalytic Mind

Connolly

Deventer

2017

Front. Psychol.

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The present paper argues that a systems theory epistemology (and particularly the notion of hierarchical recursive organization) provides the critical theoretical context within which the significance of Friston's (2010a) Free Energy Principle (FEP) for both evolution and psychoanalysis is best understood. Within this perspective, the FEP occupies a particular level of the hierarchical organization of the organism, which is the level of biological self-organization. This form of biological self-organization is in turn understood as foundational and pervasive to the higher levels of organization of the human organism that are of interest to both neuroscience as well as psychoanalysis. Consequently, central psychoanalytic claims should be restated, in order to be located in their proper place within a hierarchical recursive organization of the (situated) organism. In light of the FEP the realization of the psychoanalytic mind by the brain should be seen in terms of the evolution of different levels of systematic organization where the concepts of psychoanalysis describe a level of hierarchical recursive organization superordinate to that of biological self-organization and the FEP. The implication of this formulation is that while “psychoanalytic” mental processes are fundamentally subject to the FEP, they nonetheless also add their own principles of process over and above that of the FEP. A model found in Grobbelaar (1989) offers a recursive bottom-up description of the self-organization of the psychoanalytic ego as dependent on the organization of language (and affect), which is itself founded upon the tendency toward autopoiesis (self-making) within the organism, which is in turn described as formally similar to the FEP. Meaningful consilience between Grobbelaar's model and the hierarchical recursive description available in Friston's (2010a) theory is described. The paper concludes that the valuable contribution of the FEP to psychoanalysis underscores the necessity of reengagement with the core concepts of psychoanalytic theory, and the usefulness that a systems theory epistemology—particularly hierarchical recursive description—can have for this goal.

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The psychoanalytic process: A systems and information processing model

Cited by 15 publications

References 3 publications

What kind of research in psychoanalytic science?

What kind of research in psychoanalytic science?

The Digital Phenotyping Project: A Psychoanalytical and Network Theory Perspective

Hierarchical Recursive Organization and the Free Energy Principle: From Biological Self-Organization to the Psychoanalytic Mind

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