Biology of Freedom

by François Ansermet, Pierre Magistretti

This groundbreaking book delivers a much needed bridge between the neurosciences and psychoanalysis.

Freud hoped that the neurosciences would offer support for his psychoanalysis theories at some point in the future: both disciplines, after all, agree that experience leaves traces in the mind. But even today, as we enter the twenty-first century, all too many scientists and analysts maintain that each side has wholly different models of the origin and nature of those traces. What constitutes human experience, how does this experience shape us, and how, if at all, do we change our lives? Psychoanalysis and the neurosciences have failed to communicate about these questions, when they have not been frankly antagonistic. But in Biology of Freedom Francois Ansermet and Pierre Magistretti are at last breaking new ground.

This fully illustrated account, rigorous yet lucid and entirely accessible, shows how the plasticity of the brain's neural network allows for successive inscriptions, transcriptions, and retranscriptions of experience, leading to the constitution of an inner reality, an unconscious psychic life unique to each individual. In what amounts to a paradigm shift based on the concept of plasticity, this elegant, seamless collaboration of a psychoanalyst and a neuroscientist bridges the gap between disciplines formerly believed to be incompatible. Ansermet and Magistretti have opened up new areas of exploration of the mind/body connection and profoundly new ways in which to understand the bodily underpinnings of personal freedom, identity, and change.

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Philosophy

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Slava Skobeloff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am not a psychoanalyst, nor am I a neurobiologist and have only a relatively casual interest in them. That being said, I have sort of mixed feelings about the book, on one hand, when Ansermet makes connections between the two fields, the most striking to me were of the synaptic trace-unconscious trace and the idea of the amygdala as it links with an unconscious internal reality/perception that is separate from external reality, it almost feels as if Freudian theories are getting the treatment they properly deserve--the authors spell it out so that these connections almost feel like they were obvious from the beginning. I also especially liked the fact that they take a very gentle approach to the reader, making sure to explain neurobiological concepts (some of which I already encountered in my AP Psychology class) to, I assume, a mainly psychoanalytic audience.

However, when it delves into the more 'theoretical' aspects of psychoanalysis, namely that of the death drive (Thanatos) or Lacan's jouissance, I dunno if it does it justice. Of course, this is a rather preliminary introduction, but I think, when it comes to concepts such as jouissance, it's impossible to find the same biological correlate as one can with the drive, if jouissance necessarily connects with the non-symbolisable Real. That being said, I think it provides an extremely firm basis for the empirical verification of psychoanalysis, and further confirms the genius of Freud, and the validity of his findings--providing a new meaning to what he called a new psychology.

[Tissuereligion · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I had to pick an example of all the books I have ever read of one that portrays obvious and prosaic ideas as innovative and profound, this would be it.

[Leif · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sharing an interesting in the brain's extremely suggestible neuroplasticity, Ansermet and Magistretti produce remarkably coherent summaries of their shared concerns from the polar oppositions of neuroscience and psychoanalysis. In a word, the results are fascinating, though traditionalist scientists and analysts might shake their fists at the fundamentally basic work being done here. For a non-biases outsider interested in both movements, I have to say that I read this with suspicion that turned into admiration. Looking at the ways the brain inscripts experience and perceptions, the formation of fantasy for the unconscious, and the material makeup of neuronal pathways, Ansermet and Magistretti make convincing arguments for the basic but crucial importance of neuroplasticity to our lives and our analysis of culture and biology both.