Juhani Ihanus

The repressed and implicit knowledge

The distinction between implicit (non‐conscious) and explicit (conscious) knowledge made by cognitive scientists is applied to the psychoanalytic idea of repressed contents. The consequences of repression are suggested to have been caused by implicit representations. Repressed memories can also be treated in terms of explicit representations, which are prevented from becoming activated. Implicit knowledge cannot, however, be made conscious, and thus the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed desires and fears that have never been conscious is contradictory. This tension may be relieved by reconceptualising the idea of becoming conscious of the repressed. It is suggested that this could be seen as creating explicit knowledge about the effects of implicit representations. By applying the implicit/explicit knowledge distinction, psychoanalytic ideas concerning the repressed could be connected to current views in the domain of cognitive orientation.

On neuropsychoanalytic metaphysics.

Neuropsychoanalysis focuses on the neural counterparts of psychoanalytically interesting phenomena and has left the difference in the metaphysical presuppositions between neuroscience and psychoanalysis unexamined. The authors analyse the logical possibilities concerning the relation between the brain and the mental unconscious in terms of the serial, parallel, epiphenomenalist and Kantian conceptions, and conclude that none of them provides a satisfactory ground for neuropsychoanalysis. As far as psychoanalytic explanations refer to the mental unconscious, they cannot be verified with the help of neuroscience. Neither is it possible to form a picture of how a neuro‐viewpoint might be of help for psychoanalytic theorizing. Neuropsychoanalysis has occasionally been seen as a reductionist affair, but the authors suggest that neuropsychoanalysts themselves lean on the hybrid conception, which combines neuroscientific and psychoanalytic viewpoints. The authors state arguments in favour of the interfield conception of neuropsychoanalysis that takes seriously the metaphysical tensions between neuroscience and psychoanalysis.

The archive and psychoanalysis: Memories and histories toward futures

Abstract The archive and psychoanalysis are reconnected in a new framework. The archaeological metaphor of psychoanalysis, the traditional view of archives as storehouses of historical items, and the notion of memory as storage are revised according to the conceptions of fluid and dynamic archival and memory systems. A combination of psychoanalytic models and cognitive memory research is proposed to form developmental archival theory that will take into account the changing contexts of memory, meaning-making, negotiation of interpretation, and knowledge regulation. The three phases of registration (archivalization, archivization, and archiving) are seen in the dynamics of unconsciousness–consciousness, and in relation to the archivists’ and researchers’ transferences to their records as self-objects, transitional objects or evocative objects. Becoming conscious of archives is a continuous journeying through the multiple registrations and narrativizations of archives in the interaction between non-declarative and declarative memory. The archive and psychoanalysis touch upon processes that are suggested to concern metamemory and metareflection (the interplay between meta-emotion and metacognition). The futures of archives and psychoanalysis call for context-sensitive remembering and being attentive to the co-constructive translations of personal and social memory. Opening archives and psychoanalysis toward the unprecedented, without closing histories and memories, is the interminable task of encountering the “missing moment.”

Touching stories in biblio-poetry therapy and personal development

The contribution of stories in biblio-poetry therapy practice and in enhancing personal development is the focus of this paper. Writing, telling and listening to stories open up possibilities for change and new learning windows. Through expressive and communicative stories, therapeutic and developmental dia- and polylogism can expand ones imaginative space and perspectives of action in a “holding framework” and even in virtual communities. Rewriting previous “truth stories” moves and modifies ones conceptions of self, others and life relations. The inhibitions, failures and dislocations inherent in storytelling also provide valuable experiential and experimental touching/moving knowledge. The presence of the “imagined reader” and the “internal supervisor” in the writing process can help in reflecting, evaluating and steering, through meta-emotional and metacognitive processes, ones own and others’ needs, aspirations and goals.

On the Nature of Repressed Contents— A Working-Through of John Searle's Critique

The philosopher John Searle has called Freud’s idea about repressed contents “incoherent,” “factually empty,” and “implying dualism.” Thus he has been seen as a critic of psychoanalysis. This view is questioned in the present article. Searle shares the central ideas of psychoanalysis, and the differences between him and Freud are conceptual. Problems with unconscious meanings and mental contents of the repressed are treated here as philosophical, and the debate on this issue is suggested to have minor relevance for clinical data and psychoanalytic practice. The authors of this article prefer the terms “unconscious meaning preservation” and “meaning manipulation” instead of repressed contents. It is problematic to show how repressed contents would exist other than as neurophysiological structures. However, talk about repressed desires and memories is assessed as unavoidable and reasonable for psychoanalytic practice.

On the origins of psychoanalytic psychohistory

This article examines the origins and early development of psychoanalytically inspired psychohistory from the late 1950s to the early 1970s. It focuses on Erik H. Erikson, Bruce Mazlish, and Robert Jay Lifton and illustrates their contributions to psychoanalytic psychohistory. Erikson, Mazlish, and Lifton were core members of the Wellfleet group, a research project originally funded by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1965 to conceptualize the foundation of psychohistory. The article gives an account of the early history of the Wellfleet group and argues for specific historical reasons to explain why psychoanalytic psychohistory emerged on the East Coast of the United States in the late 1950s and early 1960s. A critique of the Wellfleet group in unpublished correspondence of Erich Fromm and David Riesman is also discussed.

Conversation about poetry/writing therapy: Two European perspectives

This conversation about poetry/writing therapy germinated from many discussions between two authors with long experience in the field. Their conversation has an essentially European quality, deepened by cultural differences. They talk about fundamental principles and values used in their practice and professional writing; their own personal writing experience that brought them to this work; characteristics and history of European approaches; its foundations in education, psychology, and philosophy; the difference and similarities between published literary writing and therapeutic writing; and the role of metaphor, narrative, and descriptive observation writing. An eclectic range of references, vital to the field, including selected research trial evidence from the United States and Europe, are drawn upon and critically discussed.

Dancing with Words: Transference and Countertransference in Biblio/Poetry Therapy.

Storytelling and active listening in interaction processes have been a vital core of biblio/poetry therapy long before current “narrative therapies.” The invention of the self and others through expressive resources inherent in language is incorporated in this article within biblio/poetry therapy. Especially poetic communication conveys, through texts, “transformative” transferences and countertransferences that foster the creative imagination, “dancing with words.” The author also proposes that there can be “static” textual transferences and countertransferences that maintain a monological stalemate, a desert of words. Biblio/poetry therapy is seen as a performance scene where co-tellings, co-constructions and co-interpretations of life intermingle, and create shifting worlds of meaning.

On the relation between neural and psychological mechanisms: neuropsychoanalysis and the “new mechanists”

The relationship between neuroscience and psychoanalysis is studied by taking “the new mechanism of neuroscience” under scrutiny. That new trend stresses that neuroscientific explanations are mechanistic explanations in particular. Since the issue of psychological mechanisms lies at the core of psychoanalysis, it is crucial to study the relationship between neural and psychological mechanisms. The authors argue that neuroscience cannot verify psychoanalytic theories. However, by combining neuroscientific and psychoanalytic (psychological) viewpoints, it will be possible to approach a more holistic picture of psychological phenomena, here suggested by a new conception of defense mechanisms.

The Psychic Apparatus, Metapsychology, and Neuroscience: Toward Biological (Neuro)Psychoanalysis

The scope and limits of neuropsychoanalysis are studied through the concept of the “psychic apparatus.” This is a central concept in psychoanalytic thinking, but neither Freud nor present-day neuropsychoanalysts have been able to tell whether or not it refers to a neural “thing.” The authors argue that it refers not only to the brain, but also to personal history, the dynamics of mental states, and their possible repressive functions. Thus, it cannot be reduced to neurophysiology. On the contrary, metapsychology, and thereby the term “psychic apparatus”, fall into the domain that evolutionary biologists and the philosopher Daniel Dennett call the design level. It is suggested that, in terms of clinical practice, the major shortcoming of neuropsychoanalysis is its inability to incorporate (repressive) functions of mental states. Claiming that psychoanalysts too hastily abandoned metapsychology, the authors consider the possibility of creating a “new metapsychology” within the scope of neuropsychoanalysis.