Freud's 1926 conjecture is confirmed: evidence from the dorsal periaqueductal gray in mice that human psychological defense against internal instinctual threat evolved from animal motor defense against external predatory threat.

In 1926, Freud famously conjectured that the human ego defense of repression against an instinctual threat evolved from the animal motor defense of flight from an predatory threat. Studies over the past 50 years mainly in rodents have investigated the neurobiology of the fight-or-flight reflex to external threats, which activates the emergency alarm system in the dorsal periaqueductal gray (dPAG), the malfunction of which appears likely in panic and post-traumatic stress disorders, but perhaps also in some "non-emergent" conditions like social anxiety and "hysterical" conversion disorder. Computational neuroscience studies in mice by Reis and colleagues have revealed unprecedented insights into the dPAG-related neural mechanisms underlying these evolutionarily honed emergency vertebrate defensive functions (e.

Visiting Psychodynamic Scholars Enhance Psychodynamic Learning for Psychiatric Residents.

Limited resources in psychodynamic education in psychiatry residency training led the American Academy of Psychodynamic Psychiatry and Psychoanalysis to create The Victor J. Teichner Award. This award funds a psychodynamic scholar to visit a psychiatry residency program to teach residents and faculty over a 2-3-day period.

A cat is not a battleship: thoughts on the meaning of "neuropsychoanalysis".

As a conspicuously hybrid entity, neuropsychoanalysis enjoins one to look critically at its assumptions about knowledge and subjectivity as one tries to understand how its un-hyphenated halves relate to one another. The author looks at the differences between mind (which is grounded in subjective experience) and brain (which is an objectively described neurobiological entity), and suggests that neuropsychoanalytic writers are inclined to acknowledge but then disregard the unique, irreducible nature of lived experience, and the fundamental differences between the psychoanalytic mind (which requires an experiencing subject) and the brain (which is a neuronal aggregate). The author offers a philosophical basis for contending that there are potential dangers for psychoanalysis when neuroscience is misrecognized in its fundamental differences and injudiciously employed as a psychoanalytic partner in order to answer questions that properly belong to the language and conceptual architecture of psychoanalysis.

THE EPISTEMOLOGY BEHIND THE CURTAIN: THOUGHTS ON THE SCIENCE OF PSYCHOANALYSIS.

This essay is concerned with the epistemological complications of the interface between psychoanalysis and "scientific" disciplines and methodologies-in particular, with respect to theories of knowledge and conceptualizations of subjectivity appropriate to psychoanalysis. The author suggests that there is in such interface the potential for an untheorized scientism in empiricist prescriptions for the reform and rescue of psychoanalysis, and revisits the notion that subjectivity as conceived psychoanalytically, grounded in lived experience, is irreducible in ways that are unique and existentially abiding. The author explores the problem through the lens of philosophical hermeneutics and cautions against merging psychoanalysis, under the guise of a salutary pluralism, with disciplines guided by a systematized empiricism and its attendant epistemological commitments.

Clinical Considerations Regarding Regression in Psychotherapy with Patients with Conversion Disorder.

Regression is a ubiquitous phenomenon in psychodynamic psychotherapy and psychoanalysis, typically part of a reorganization that leads to progression, at least with respect to recruiting elements in the unconscious to consciousness. Regression in patients with conversion disorder (i.e.

A psychodynamic perspective on treatment of patients with conversion and other somatoform disorders.

Conversion disorder, the development of symptoms of neurological disease with no organic basis, is a challenge for mental health professionals to diagnose and treat effectively. There are well-established predisposing factors, such as female sex, childhood trauma, and alexithymia, but less clear is how to approach the subjective suffering that is symbolized with the symptom rather than consciously recognized. While there are overlapping comorbidities such as depression and anxiety that may be treated with medication, psychotherapy is the primary effective treatment for patients with adequate capacity to engage in the process.

Can the season of birth risk factor for schizophrenia be prevented by bright light treatment for the second trimester mother around the winter solstice?

The season of birth risk factor for schizophrenia exerts a pervasive effect on the global population, particularly at northerly latitudes. The winter infection hypothesis and the low vitamin D hypothesis are both compelling but lack conclusive clinical data. The present work develops a maternal-fetal chronobiological hypothesis for this season of birth risk factor and its prevention by maternal bright light treatment.

A national survey of candidates: I. demographics, practice patterns, and satisfaction with training.

To better focus efforts in recruiting psychoanalytic candidates, current candidates' demographics, practice patterns, and satisfaction with psychoanalytic training were investigated. An anonymous web-based survey was distributed by e-mail to all candidates subscribing to the affiliate member e-mail list in 2009-2010. Surveys were completed by 226 of 565 affiliate members, for a return rate of 40%.

Can psychiatry residents be attracted to analytic training? A survey of five residency programs.

In the face of fewer psychiatrist applicants for psychoanalytic training, determining the interest of current psychiatric residents in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic psychiatry is a pressing concern. To gauge this interest, an anonymous online survey was sent to residents from five psychiatry residency programs in the Midwest and South. Seventy-five residents responded, for a return rate of 42%.

Countertransference and disaster psychiatry: from Buffalo Creek to 9/11.

This article describes issues of countertransference in disaster psychiatry and makes use of specific examples from therapists working in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.

The elusive concept of the psychoanalytic process.

Although the term psychoanalytic process is frequently used, there is no consensual definition of its meaning. Some authors use it to designate a recognizable set of experiences within psychoanalysis. Others, a majority, use it as a synonym for the entire psychoanalytic experience, describing in detail what analysts do to achieve their goals.

Assessing long-term effects of trauma: diagnosing symptoms of avoidance and numbing.

Objective: This study compared the discovery of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms by means of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-III-R (SCID) with a semistructured, psychodynamic clinical interview in a long-term follow-up of the survivors of the Buffalo Creek (W.Va.) flood.

Portraits of survival. A twenty-year follow-up of the children of Buffalo Creek.

This study is a follow-up of the children of Buffalo Creek "hollow" who survived the dam collapse and flood of 1972. It was conceived as a complement to the 1988 NIMH-funded follow-up investigation of the children of Buffalo Creek conducted by the University of Cincinnati Traumatic Stress Study Center. That 1988 study utilized standardized methodology to assess levels of psychopathology present among those who were children at the time of the 1972 flood.