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9 Affects, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience: Commentary by Clifford Yorke (South Moreton, England)
9 Affects, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience: Commentary by Clifford Yorke (South Moreton, England)
Clifford Yorke
a
To cite this article: Clifford Yorke (1999) Affects, Psychoanalysis, and Neuroscience: Commentary by Clifford Yorke (South
Moreton, England), Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 1:1,
60-69, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.1999.10773247
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.1999.10773247
60
D. F. Barone, M. Hersen, & V. B. Van Hasselt. New
York: Plenum Press.
- - Bond, J., Brakel, L. A. W., Hertel, R. K., &
Williams, W. J. (1996), Conscious and Unconscious Processes: Psychodynamic, Cognitive, and Neurophysiological Convergences. New York: Guilford Press.
Clifford Yorke
Howard Shevrin
University of Michigan Medical Center
Riverview Building, 900 Wall Street
Ann Arbor, MI48105-0722
e-mail: shevrin @ umich. edu
I
When I was still a student, I had the temerity to speak
during a discussion, at the British Psycho-Analytic Society, of a paper that touched on the subject of affects.
Although I had read a good deal of Freud I was, perhaps, unduly influenced by Rapaport (1953) and others when I asserted that the understanding of affects
was perhaps the weakest part of the psychoanalytic
theory of the way the mind worked. No one contradicted me, and no psychoanalytic elder pointed out
that a firm foundation for a psychological theory of
affect already existed in Freud's writings. As my acquaintance with Freud deepened, and I began to know
better, I looked back on the episode with some astonishment.
It might be thought that the uncritical reaction to
my ill-judged assertion was due to a reluctance, on
the part of the enlightened, to contradict a student,
however callow, who had dared to take part in open
debate. That is unlikely: It would surely have been
more helpful to set to rights such a wrong-headed declaration. It began to dawn on me that the plain fact of
the matter was that no one knew I was wrong. How
can this be explained?
Solms and Nersessian are surely right when they
say that Freud's theory of affects is scattered throughout an extensive literature covering some 40 years of
experience and reflection, and that no single work is
devoted to a full exposition of its fundamental judgments and concepts. That would certainly account for
some of the misunderstandings, though not perhaps all
the misrepresentations. Some of the latter have come
from willful distortions of Freud's thinking by those
who come from outside the profession and who, for a
Clifford Yorke, F.R.C.Psych., D.P.M., is a Training and Supervising
Analyst, British Psychoanalytic Society.
II
The paper by Solms and Nersessian does what has not
been attempted before in bringing together the essentials of Freud's contributions to the subject of affects
in a remarkably succinct, predigested, and readily assimilable form. It is set out in a way that greatly assists
comprehension, and it gives a singular opportunity for
those who wish to further their understanding of his
theory, whether or not they agree with all that is said. 2
2 This demands that the psychoanalytic reader can overcome any
marked ambivalence to Freud and is unlikely to transfer it to the authors.
The neuroscientific reader may not regard Freud as a paternal progenitor,
even if he admires his preanalytic work in the field, and may be spared
this requirement.
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One of its virtues is its helpful division under appropriate and logically arranged headings. It is also of
great assistance to the reader that Panksepp, in his
commentary, has followed a comparable structure.
Each division of the paper ends with a number of
questions addressed to the authors' neuroscientific respondent, and by following a similarly systematic organization, Panksepp' s replies facilitate the reader's
task in following them. For my own part, my comments are too selective to allow me to adhere to that
elegant design. It should be understood that I write as
a psychoanalyst with no claim to neuroscientific expertise.
I find the target paper strikingly clear, and entirely successful in pointing to the cogency of Freud's
main principles. Although some of the points could be
enlarged on, it is surely right that the authors stick to
essentials and do not attempt to go beyond the necessities of a general exposition. Further enlargement
would, for present purposes, be supererogatory; and I
find nothing fundamental missing from the summary.
The fact that Freud's formulations were not, as the
authors' say, always consistent, is a matter for historical survey, but not for closer consideration in the present context. The questions put for the deliberation of
neuroscientists are not ones that I can readily evaluate,
but their paper provides all the psychoanalytic material that our colleagues in that discipline need to keep
in mind when attempting to address them.
As far as I can judge, Panksepp's extensive response to these questions is remarkably thorough and
carefully considered, and I found his paper richly informative. Still, we have to remember that, when talking across disciplines, it is vital that those who do not
share, in depth, a psychoanalytic background scrutinize any succinct summary with the greatest care if
misunderstandings are to be avoided. Panksepp is very
receptive to Freud's conceptual thinking on affects
though, understandably, he wants to see them verified
by research. He is appreciative of the contribution by
Solms and Nersessian, but at one point he avers: "At
present, the Freudian 'drive' concept retains little
value, and in my estimation, should be put to rest."
He also says that the term drive "has been used in
too many ways in the history of psychology to be
resurrected as a major explanatory concept in any system." Surely, though, it is the way Freud used the
concept that concerns us in this particular exchange
of ideas. And, in that regard, I think Panksepp has not
fully understood the meaning and significance of that
usage. It is of great importance to look very carefully
at the paragraph in which Solms and Nersessian pro-
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Clifford Yorke
psychical expression here [in the id] in forms unknown to us [po 145; emphasis added].
The forces which we assume to exist behind the tensions caused by the needs of the id are called instincts
[drives] (original emphasis). They represent the somatic demands upon the mind ... they are the ultimate cause of all activity... [po 148; emphasis
added].
63
ideas" which is invested with a definite quota of psychical energy (libido or interest) coming from an instinct [drive]." However, there is a complication.
What happens if an "idea" undergoes repression? Or,
more accurately, what happens to the "quota of psychical energy" to which it was originally attached?
There must be some other element involved in the
representative, an element other than the idea, an element that becomes separated from it. Freud (1915b)
answers as follows: "For this other element of this
psychical representative the term quota of affect has
been generally adopted. It corresponds to the instinct
in so far as the latter has become detached from the
idea and finds expression proportionate to its quality,
in processes that are sensed as affects" (p. 152; emphasis added). I find it helpful to think of ideas and
images as representatives of drives, and affects as derivatives of them, but that is simply a personal convenience.
In the case of ideas and images that have not been
subject to repression, the quantitative factor and the
representative are not as a rule completely separate.
Panksepp, writing with the neurobiological correlates
in mind, is very clear about this. While agreeing with
LeDoux (1996) and Morris, Ohman, and Dolan (1998)
that the' 'conditioning of emotional responses can proceed without any consciously perceived affect," he
believes that:
[I]n early childhood there is no sustained line of
thought without a sustained line of affect, and if we
really want to understand how people and animals
behave in the long run, we must understand their emotional feelings. It is only in adulthood, when longterm behavior patterns and habits of thinking and defenses have been established, that the obvious linkages between affect and behavior diminish.
Clifford Yorke
64
III
Many psychoanalysts, especially those who work with
children, have taken steps to clarify the ways in which
certain affective states develop, and Panksepp has
made important contributions to the neuroscientific
understanding of these processes. Psychologically, the
pleasure-pain principle manifests itself early in life
through those qualities that dichotomize bliss and murderous rage, 8 but everyday observation confirms that
affects diversify and become increasingly refined as
development proceeds. The appreciation of the differences, say, between shame, guilt, remorse, and regret
cannot be expected before a child has reached a high
degree of development, though the capacity to explain
those complex affective presentations with verbal accuracy may not be acquired until very much later. (In
teaching medical students, I have found that some had
difficulty in accurately defining these terms.) All these
affects are mediated through the superego or its precursors, though the roots of shame, for example, are
to be found well before guilt is established (Yorke et
aI., 1990); and guilt has complex precursors too (e.g.,
Kennedy and Yorke [1982], but the psychoanalytic
literature is extensive). Solms and Nersessian were
right, I believe, at this stage of our disciplinary interchange, to stick to basic principles and set aside such
complexities. For all that, I want to say a few words
about anxiety in relation to development (touching
briefly on the superego) since this seems a rewarding
matter of mutual interest.
Freud (e.g., 1915b) held the view that, when the
representatives of libidinal drives were repressed, the
drive derivatives (to use the distinction suggested earlier) became transformed into anxiety. There is clinical evidence to support this view, and some analysts
consider that the later theory of anxiety (Freud, 1926)
did not altogether replace it (see Freeman, 1998),
8 This fact demonstrates, more clearly than anything else, the impossibility of divorcing affect from drives.
65
66
the concomitant capacity for delayed drive-discharge
through "trial action"; and other developmental steps
(e.g., in regard to defenses) will ensure an increasing
capacity for control over anxiety.
The steps that lead from one way station to the
next are immensely complex. They are considered in
the references cited. If the views expanded there have
substance, further elucidation of their neuropsychological correlates are called for and may well be possible.
IV
Early in his paper, Panksepp states: "Psychoanalytic
theory may now help guide neuroscientific thinking
concerning various emotional dynamics that transpire
within neural tissues. Conversely, neuroscience can
provide the facts which may allow psychoanalytic theory to link up firmly with objective approaches, and
thereby submit itself to the type of disciplined empirical inquiry that is the hallmark of all true sciences."
Not many will disagree with that contention. But what
immediately follows is worth further thought. He continues: "In order for our concepts to have scientific
substance, they must be capable of being quantified
(whether it be by direct or indirect measures), and to
specify systematic relationships to other variables that
can also be quantified."
That may prove to be the case, in certain instances, where neural processes or neurochemical processes are concerned but there is, to my mind, an
unfortunate equation of empiricism with research
methods involving quantification. The Oxford English
Dictionary points to several meanings of the term empiric and the adjective derived from it, but, in the
context that concerns us, defines the noun as "one
who, either in medicine or other branches of science,
relies solely upon observation and experiment."
Quantification mayor may not be a part of such procedures. Panksepp rightly praises the book by Solms
(1997), but that work is a clinicoanatomical study and
its use of quantification is not substantial.
The limitations of quantification in psychology
are obvious, especially when attempts are made to
measure the immeasurable. It may well be that brain
activity that correlates with psychological processes
will not necessarily be refractory to mensuration, and
measurable correlations would be welcome. But in
considering such possibilities we would surely do well
to keep in mind some of the observations of Luria
(1979), who underlined the distinction between what,
Clifford Yorke
early in the century, the German scholar Max Verworn
had called "classical" and "romantic" science. The
richness and force of Luria's discussion cannot be
conveyed in summary, but it may be said that, for
him, "classical" was akin to the nomothetic, in which
events are broken down into their constituent parts,
and the study of significant elements allows the formulation of abstract general laws. (In this part of the
discussion I have drawn heavily on an earlier and more
extended summary [Yorke, 1995], but there is no substitute for the original discussion [Luria, 1979].) These
then become the agents of the phenomena observed in
the field of investigation. The living whole is reduced
to the abstraction of schemata. The path taken by the
romantic scientist is a different, even opposite, one
and is akin to the idiographic method. The research
worker has no wish "to split living reality into its
elementary components nor to represent the wealth of
life's concrete events in abstract models that lose the
properties of the phenomena themselves" (p. 174). In
this connection, Luria quotes a passage from Goethe:
"Gray is every theory, but ever green is the tree of
life." This was a favorite quotation of Freud's. The
distinction between "classical" and "romantic" science is very similar to that which separates Newtonian
science from the scientific tradition that begins with
Goethe and which Kaufmann (1980) has described so
very well. (One of Kaufmann's chapters is called
"Freud's Poetic Science,"l0 but it is the same in all
essentials as Luria's "romantic science.") This major
distinction needs restating: no one forgets the great
contributions to science of Newton, but the scientific
discoveries of Goethe, using a strikingly different approach, are sometimes overlooked.
Luria pointed to difficulties and limitations of
method in both procedures. Nomothetic reductionism
could have unfortunate consequences when applied
without caution to the study of mental life, and when
"the reality of human conscious [or in a psychoanalytic context, mental] activity was being replaced by
mechanical models" (Luria, 1979, p. 176). In medicine, Luria had no objection to clinical tests, nor to
the use of mathematical methods in their analysis, as
long as they did not lead to the neglect of clinical
methods and remained "servants to clinical thought."
He deplored, too, the vanishing art of the case history,
seen at its best in the clinical accounts of Charcot,
Wernicke, Korsakoff, and Henry Head, among others
(Luria might well have included Freud, whose work
10 Kauffman had written this before finding that Wittels (1930) had
already used the term.
67
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Clifford Yorke
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Response to Commentaries
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New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
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Clifford Yorke
Fieldings South Moreton, Nr Didcot
Oxon OX]] 9AB
England
e-mail: scbyorke@aol.com