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Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal

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Affect and the Integration Problem of Mind and Brain

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Barry Opatow
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Published online: 09 Jan 2014.

To cite this article: Barry Opatow (1999) Affect and the Integration Problem of Mind and Brain, Neuropsychoanalysis: An
Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 1:1, 97-110, DOI: 10.1080/15294145.1999.10773250
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97

Affect and the Integration Problem of Mind

and Brain
Barry Opatow (New York)

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The body cannot determine the mind to thought, neither can

the mind determine the body to motion nor rest, nor to anything
else, if there be anything else [Spinoza, Ethics III, Prop. 2].

Introduction
For whom is there an integration problem of mind and
brain? I mean the really important theoretical problem.
Not the merely practical dilemmas attending the torments of hunger, sex, and the terror of death. If we,
as theorists, take metaphysical monism as a regulatory
principle for science, we say that mind and brain are
ultimately one. We hold consciousness and matter to
be the same thing, even though we do not know (nor
can even imagine) how such identity could possibly
be made intelligible (McGinn, 1991; Searle, 1992).
How can subjective experience be explained in objective terms? Or, the question has been aptly put, "how
can technicolor phenomenology arise from soggy grey
matter?" (McGinn, 1991, p. 1). Or, "how can the
firing of C fibers be understood as, necessarily, pain?"
(Kripke, 1971). This basic oneness in nature becomes,
we say, something ,'frightfully difficult" (Nagel,
1986), or "the most vexing of all questions" (Damasio, 1994), or "the most difficult problem there is,
or ever was" (LeDoux, 1996), or "the ultimate mystery" (Edelman, 1992), only as we strive to apprehend
it. The difficulty is posited to fall within us, in the
limited capacity of our present conceptual resources.
We willingly take on this deficiency in order to preserve a belief in the unity of Being and sustain the hope
of a progressive unification of scientific knowledge.
However, a deep defect in the theoretical framework
afflicts our current conceptions with a recalcitrant dualism, a tendency which has been noted by Kinsbourne
Barry Opatow, M.D., is a Training and Supervising Analyst, New
York University Psychoanalytic Institute.

(1998). This dualism, often covert, is, when admitted,

methodically regarded as epistemic, pertaining only to
our theoretical knowledge. This distinction of epistemology (dualism) and ontology (monism) marks our
distance from the scientific goal.
Only very recently has the mind-body problem
fallen from the precincts of philosophy and theology
into the purview of standard empirical science. This
scientific project is grounded axiomatically in a unitary
ontology of mind and matter, and in the mandate that
this unity be explicated progressively (e.g., in this new
journal). As there currently exists no overarching
framewor k that can conceptually connect the basic
terms, the conceptual framework itself becomes an
ultimate goal of research. Short of that, our present
methodology employs a provisional conceptual apparatus that, admittedly deficient (i.e., dualistic), will be
used as the instrument for its own superseding.
This paper will explore the scientific and philosophical status of the question by juxtaposing what is,
arguably, our deepest scientific account of mind (basic
psychoanalytic theory) and current theoretical neuroscience (represented here in the cutting-edge works of
Damasio [1994], Edelman [1989, 1992], and LeDoux
[1996]). Recent developments in experimental and
clinical neurology, neurosurgery, and neuropsychology have resulted in an explosion of information regarding detailed correlations of neurophysiological
and psychological-experiential activities and functions. My discussion of this research deals little with
specific findings. Rather, it follows the scientists' interpretive reflections in their individual quests to understand how best to think about the relation of mind
and brain. My focus in this paper is on consciousness;
that is, on how consciousness is discussed in brain
science with regard to general theory construction and,
further, on the concept of consciousness in psychoanalytic theory.

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98
The representative authors concur that consciousness is (1) at the heart of the integration problem, and (2) currently, and perhaps forever,
inexplicable in physical (e.g., neurobiological) terms.
According to our century's foremost scientific epistemologist, "An analysis of the very concept of explanation would, naturally, begin and end with a
renunciation as to explaining our own conscious activity" (Bohr, 1932, p. 11). In the current dominant paradigm of neuroscience, brain activity is expressed as
information processing, which, in principle, suffices
to give a causal explanation of all of psychology.
"The key question" then becomes, "why doesn't all
this information-processing go on in the dark, free
of any inner feel? Why is the performance of these
functions accompanied by experience? We know that
conscious experience does arise when these functions
are performed, but the very fact that it arises is the
central mystery. There is an explanatory gap between
the functions and experience" (Chalmers, 1995, p.
203). The term "explanatory gap" was coined at the
inception of cognitive science (Levine, 1983), and has
had programmatic status for the field as a whole. This
gap in our capacity to link function and phenomenon,
or rather, the degree of current incapacity, is a measure
of the nearness of science (dualism) to being
(monism).
The neuroscientists agree that consciousness
figures critically in attaining higher order processing
and controls. At the same time, they realize that consciousness resists any reductive explanation in physical-biological terms, and that the progress of science
cannot wait for one. Remarkably, these researchers
have devised a virtually identical methodology to deal
with this predicament. First, consciousness is asserted
as necessary for higher order processing. Processes
that are conscious can modify and exert control over
lower level, more automatic processes that are unconscious. Consciousness is, in this sense, causally active
and not epiphenomenal. (These hard scientists share
an intriguing aversion to epiphenomenalism, the classic mind-body philosophy that consciousness, like an
engine's hum, is causally superfluous to organismic
functioning. Their attitude stems mainly from considerations that are both personal [feeling pain leads you
to phone the dentist] and evolutionary [it would be
very odd if something as remarkable as consciousness
evolved and does not execute an organismic function]). Second, "conscious causation" is formulated
specifically to mean that processes that are accompanied by conscious experience (qualia) have causal
power in mental functioning. In contrast, the qualia

Barry Opatow
themselves (the strictly experiential qualities) are regarded as merely passive outcomes or inconsequential
concomitants of the truly causal events (viz. the processing). Thus, on this view, the phenomenology of
conscious experience does not (and cannot) conceptually enter the causal chain of mental activity. Third, it
is therefore possible to conclude that conscious processing is indeed causal, even though experience per
se is not! In this functional analysis of consciousness,
a split is performed between process and experience
so that, although process is systematically linked to
experience, only the processing is causal. It is in this
limited sense (with consciousness denuded of experience) that "consciousness" is deemed causally efficacious. The "explanatory gap" seems here to yawn
ever more widely in the strain to avoid epiphenomenalism.
If this strategy gives the impression of "passing
the buck" (as LeDoux [1996] acknowledges, p. 282),
it is because any legitimate attribution of causality to
consciousness must entail that, in contrast to the
above, experience is not only a passive accompaniment to conscious processing. Rather, experience must
actively enter into the processing and affect its course.
There would therefore exist a high order mental activity that necessarily involves experience and cannot
occur "in the dark." Cognitive science has in fact
identified a candidate activity, focal attentive processing. This serial, slow, limited-capacity processing
is found to be regularly accompanied by awareness
(Velmans, 1991). Indeed, it possibly cannot occur
without it! This curious concomitance prompts the
question: Could there, then, be a way that conscious
phenomenology is functionally involved in thinking?
There are several researchers who believe that it is.
Baars (1988) states that consciousness somehow facilitates learning. Mandler (1985) thinks that there is an
attentional activation of information which is mediated by consciousness. Keane (1991) believes consciousness is crucial for the drawing of certain
analogies. Schacter (1989) holds that phenomenal consciousness integrates the outputs of more specialized
modules, and, hence, plays a causal role in information
processing. The remarkable empirical discovery that
the functional and phenomenal aspects of consciousness are intimately linked (e.g., in focal-attentive processing) would, then, no longer be inexplicable, and
take on true theoretical import. In an authentic rejection of epiphenomenalism, consciousness has causal
force just because experience has intrinsic activity. I
discuss this activity of consciousness below, as illuminated by psychoanalytic theory. I am wary of a theoret-

Integrating Mind and Brain

ical advance in integration which "bridges" the

conceptual gap between mind and brain by relocating
it in the center of consciousness.

Conscious and Unconscious in Neuroscience

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It may well be that the relation of mind and body is an ultimate,

unique and unanalyzable one.... Nor does it seem that new
empirical information will serve as a decisive test for one theory over another. ... If so, philosophical wisdom would consist
in giving up ... and accepting it as the anomaly it is" [Shaffer,
Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1967, p. 345].

In Joseph LeDoux's The Emotional Brain (1996), a

laboratory procedure studies animal brains as they process stimuli and generate controlled, objectively measurable responses. This method, of course, leaves out
the subjective dimensions of emotional feelings. Indeed, even in humans, it is precisely the existence and
functions of consciousness in its phenomenological aspects which, resisting complete objectification, cannot
fully, for experiment, be "represented in the brain"
(Searle, 1992; Crick, 1994). Still, LeDoux claims (as
subjective states are mere products of processing), if
we don't require experience to explain emotional behaviors in animals, then neither do we in people. LeDoux's theory, in main outline, holds that the
unconscious systems that detect danger comprise the
"fundamental mechanism of fear." This is reinforced
by the idea that as emotional feelings are effects, not
causes (p. 18), their consciousness is epiphenomenal.
It is clear throughout the book that the author is deeply
ambivalent about this conclusion (not only in the existential sense in which emotional feelings are designated by LeDoux, "the core of who we are," but also,
and scientifically more important, in the functional
sense as well). He describes a two-tier processing system for affects-aptly called the "low road and the
high road" -that is analogous to many hierarchical
models in neuroscience and psychoanalytic theory
(Freud, 1915c). In affective processing, the "low
road" transports environmental input directly from the
sensory thalamus to the amygdala, the "hub" of the
fear system. This subcortical processing is automatic,
instantaneous ("greased lighting") and, cognitively
, 'dirty. " It cannot make fine distinctions and treats,
say, all red things as the same-as, for instance, dangerously hot. This peremptory, indiscriminate unconscious processing therefore exhibits the main
structural features of the psychoanalytic primary process. Although it has survival value, enabling one to

99

avoid (or shoot) first and ask questions later, it is too

stupid to be really adaptive. It hence became evolutionarily equipped with an overriding control mechanism (like the "second system" in Freud [1900,
chapter 7]) which loops through the cortex (thalamuscortex-amygdala) and implicates conscious processing. With this, there comes a shift from reacting
to acting.
For LeDoux, anxiety disorders result when the
primitive fear system breaks loose from these cortical
controls, whereas treatment works, conversely, to enhance the conscious control of emotion. In LeDoux's
theory, this higher level processing leans heavily on
the cognitive science concept of "working memory"
(stressed also by Damasio). Working memory is described as an executive scanning mechanism involved
in the focusing of attention. Believed to occur neurally
in the lateral prefrontal cortex, it refers roughly to
what we are currently paying attention to. Although
it furnishes a framework that, admittedly, does not
explain consciousness (p. 332), it "provides a workspace for consciousness to hold several pieces of information in mind at the same time where they can be
compared, contrasted and otherwise interrelated." It
is, however, pivotal that such thought activity has been
known, since Kant, to involve reflective consciousness, implicating consciousness in intrinsic activities
of negation and synthesis. 1 Searle also identifies conscious synthesis with this Kantian notion (1992, p.
130). According to Gerald Edelman, the integral role
of consciousness in concept formation could account
for its selectional advantage (1989, p. 146). Thus, the
concept of working memory has effectively allowed
reflective consciousness to be implicitly introduced
into neurobiological theory.
In LeDoux's conception, working memory is
more than just short-term memory, but an active process that makes high level thinking and reasoning possible. In addition, as working memory also enables
, 'top-down processing,' , conscious reasoning has
functional effects and issues in "voluntary action."
In this cognitivist model, consciousness is a unitary
limited-capacity serial processor sitting at the top of
the cognitive hierarchy and performing symbolic manipulations on the multiple subsymbolic parallel processors. Working memory, a supervising function
achieving focused attention, is "the gateway to con1 Clinical evidence for the importance of this self-reflection comes
from the study of "blindsight." Subjects with visual cortical damage are
aware, but lack the ability to be aware that they are aware. They would
die of thirst with water right in front of them (Campion, Latto, and
Smith, 1986).

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100

sciousness" (p. 301), and permits reflective awareness

of the "here and now" (p. 278). Located at the cortical top of the 'low-road/high-road' hierarchy, "working memory becomes actively focused on the
amygdala-based arousal and tries to figure it out and
decide what to do about it" (p. 291). "Consciousness
is the awareness of what is in working memory" (p.
278), and "elevates thinking to a new level" (p. 302).
LeDoux means this conclusion to apply not only to
conceptual level but to functional ability to adapt to
reality. I have gone over LeDoux's formulations
closely in light of his methodological postulate that it
is not necessary to solve the problem of consciousness
before constructing a theory of how emotions work
(p. 34, p. 282). As I indicated above, a fallacy looms
here-one which I think LeDoux senses keenly as he
strains in the coils of dualism. In fact, consciousness
is not best regarded as the mere appearing product
of unconscious processing. Moreover, it is not to be
identified with content alone. As taught by the great
phenomenologists (Kant, Hegel), and echoing down to
modern cognitive and neuroscience, consciousness is
an active construction of a dimensional manifold
where discrete objects can be synthesized, identified,
and, through reflection, used as the raw material for
reason, so that objects of thought can be linked by concepts.
The cognitive science concept of "working
memory" tries to avoid epiphenomenalism and all dualism while asserting that conscious thinking is crucial
for processing. It attempts this by making consciousness per se a superfluous (but clinging) concomitant
of a wholly unconscious causation. Unwittingly, however, the theory makes subjective experience integral
to brain functioning. In my view, LeDoux's hierarchical theory is, in fact, a version of dualist interactionism. Under conceptual cover of "working
memory," neurology and consciousness are reciprocally linked by an untheorized causation. As these formulations are paradigmatic for current neuroscience,
it is understandable why some (Penrose, 1989; Stapp,
1993) argue that the real way out of this dilemma is
to find a physical theory of the brain which, by going
deeper than physiology (i.e., quantum mechanics),
could achieve a physical explanation of consciousness, and, thus overcoming dualism, establish the scientific monism of mind and brain.
Antonio Damasio's Descartes' Error (1994) represents a stunning endorsement of basic Freudian theory from the frontier of neuroscience. I will examine
this aspect of the book later in my discussion of psychoanalysis. Here, I will focus solely on its pertinence

Barry Opatow

for the mind-brain integration problem. Damasio, a

clinical neurologist, evolves a theory of mind to explain clinical data accrued from extensive neuropsychological studies of brain-damaged patients. This
permits him to relate cognitive operations to specific
neural systems and their components. As in LeDoux's
conception, if more tacitly, a two-tier model of brain
functioning is proposed. The brain, and all its functions, evolved to deal with the basic drives and survival needs of the organism. Therefore, bodily states,
represented by emotions, pervade cognition at every
level of its operation. Most remarkable for my current
purpose is that Damasio brings consciousness to the
core definition of mind (as does Searle, 1992). He
points out that even single cell organisms can initiate
reflex responses to environmental stimuli; they can
"produce behavior." As in anencephalic infants (or
normal ones, for that matter), a distinction should be
drawn between behavioral responses and truly mental
ones. There can be "behavior" without mind. Damasio states that, in addition to reactive external responses (behavior), complex organisms generate
internal responses that constitute "the basis of mind. ' ,
In particular, at the' 'center of neurobiology" (p. 90),
there occurs a generative process whereby neural representations of somatic states and their associated objects give rise to "experiential images." "The ability
to display these images internally and to order them
in the process called thought [is the] essential condition of mind" (p. 89). Mind is therefore a cognitive
process involving body-based images "over which
you reason" (p. 196). As in LeDoux, Damasio's formulation rests on the concept of working memory-the ability to hold information in mind
(including images of absent objects) and operate on
it mentally. This is achieved neurally by unexplained
"time-binding" (cf. Crick, 1994) that performs large
scale integrations which, via global attention and
working memory, permit images to be "held long
enough in consciousness to play a role in the appropriate reasoning strategy" (p. 218). Attention and
working memory are required in order to keep the
images over which you reason "before your mind's
eye." Merely having an integrated representation in
the cerebral cortex is not sufficient for the consciousness of it (p. 103). Innate survival patterns do not
generate images and, thus, are not mental. Mind requires the experience-driven generation of images.
Furthermore, suprainstinctual survival strategies
must, first, be conscious (p. 122). For instance, consciousness of dangerous objects enables anticipatory
signal anxiety and fine discrimination, permitting

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Integrating Mind and Brain

flexibility of response rather than an automatic one.
Primary emotions (limbic), reactive to immediate
stimuli, work up to secondary (cortical) emotions that
connect emotions with object images. Novel adaptations originate in consciousness, and only then become automatic; strategic decisions among options
require consciousness (p. 118). "Developing a mind,
which really means developing representations of
which one can be made conscious as images, gave
organisms a new way to adapt to circumstances in the
environment that could not have been foreseen in the
genome" (p. 299). Nevertheless, states Damasio, "the
question of how we feel rests on our understanding of
consciousness, something about which it pays to be
modest, and that is not the subject of this book" (p.
160).
Gerald Edelman's Bright Air, Brilliant Fire
(1992) summarizes his neurobiological theory of consciousness. He is quick to acknowledge that consciousness cannot be explained in neural terms, and
that "cartesian dualism is likely to be dispelled only
when we understand the relationship between consciousness and physics" (p. 4). He indicates that' 'the
fundamental problem in neuroscience" (p. 28) involves the construction of the universal concept, "object," and the associated functions of object
recognition, generalization, and categorization. Science can explain the properties that are correlated in
objective consciousness, but not the fact of its existence. (This means, I would add, that consciousness
is not a psychological process but a precondition for
empirical psychology.) The problem of object integration threatens, states Edelman, a "homunculus crisis." "Mind depends on consciousness for its
existence and functioning. . .. Consciousness arises
from a special set of relationships between perception,
concept formation and memory" (p. 149). Later, I try
to show that these relations are set up in the psychoanalytic concept of the wish. Further, that the conceiving
of objects occurs originally as an act of conscious
wishing. This fits with the evolutionary idea, endorsed
by Edelman, that consciousness is a causal activity.
As I stressed earlier, this assertion should not be confined to experiential qualia, which, Edelman agrees,
are underivable from any physical theory. To ascribe
causal efficacy to consciousness is to attribute to subjective experience certain intrinsic activities. These, I
believe, are elucidated by psychoanalytic theory.
As is well known, Edelman regards brain development as a selectional (rather than an information
based) mechanism that eliminates some "neuronal
groups" while strengthening others. Processes of "re-

101
entry" amongst neural assemblies and ensuing
"global mappings" permit the perceptual integration
of unified objects and categorizations of them. In the
two-tier tradition, Edelman distinguishes primary consciousness (having imagery) and secondary ("higher
order' ') consciousness (which includes self-consciousness and language). Primary consciousness requires systems of concept formation, and, most
important, a set of reentrant connections that link affective, value-laden memories of past events with current perceptual categorizations. The functional activity
of these reentrant mappings is what gives rise to conscious experience. Edelman realizes that, according
to his model, the reentrant processes which develop
categories are somehow (but inexplicably) the same
events that generate phenomenal experience. For Edelman, "primary consciousness" involves the construction of a scene with causal links between events,
allowing for value-laden (i.e., affective) events to be
inserted into an ongoing scene. The categorizations
that constitute the scene occur in unconscious perceptual systems based on evolutionary determined criteria
of survival value. The synthesis of this phenomenal
scene confers additional survival value on the organism. This is due to the fact that concepts, requiring
consciousness, further operate on these perceptual categories, and apprehend abstract relations between the
categorized items within the scenes.
Higher order consciousness entails the special capacity to symbolize the "self/non-self" distinction,
which, according to Edelman, conditions the development of semantics, syntax, and internal time-consciousness. These concepts can connect previously
unrelated categorizations, thus creating new scenes in
the absence of external stimuli. In this process, the
brain is effectively mapping its own activity. This
"higher order mapping" is strikingly isomorphic to an
act of reflective consciousness which, again, appears
integral to concept formation. Conceptual/higher order consciousness acts to free the mind from the "tyranny of the present" (Edelman, 1989, p. 187). Such
symbolic reference means that mind can now operate
on an inner world, bringing forth a veritable' 'ontological revolution" (1992, p. 150). By this, I understand
that in the act of self-consciousness, the mind breaks
free of self-identity. Each act of self-reflection is, also,
a self-negation (Hegel). The mind becomes reflectively aware of experience instead of being passively
immersed in it. In conscious reflection, an act of negation creates an inner distance from experiential immediacy. What was simply lived out becomes new raw
material for further mediation of thought. Experience

102

Barry Opatow

objectified to this increased degree can be reorganized

at a higher conceptual level. We see here an instance
of conscious activity "entering into" cognitive processing in a truly causal way.

Affect and Thought in the Psychoanalytic

Theory of Consciousness
Those philosophers who have become aware that rational
[thoughts] are possible without consciousness ... have found
difficulty in assigning any function to consciousness; it has
seemed to them that it can be no more than a superfluous reflected picture of the completed psychical process. We, on the
other hand, are rescued from this embarrassment ..." [Freud,
1900, p. 616].

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Desire is the essence of man [Spinoza, Ethics III, Prop. 59].

David Rapaport, perhaps, after Freud, the greatest

psychoanalytic theorist of thinking, called the psychoanalytic wish, "the cradle of conscious experience"
(1951, p. 690). It is fitting that psychoanalysis may
have something unique and important to contribute to
the mind-body integration problem. Freud's notion of
the "instinctual drive," the basic concept of his entire
metapsychology (Ricoeur, 1970), functions precisely
to conceptualize the mind-body "frontier" for a theory of mind (Freud, 1915a). This is in keeping with
Freud's steadfast and rigorous attempt to ground mental existence in organismic life. Psychoanalytic theory
had to give primacy to the mind-body relation because
psychoanalytic practice disclosed the full extent to
which this relation defines our psychological existence. It is an intriguing scientific predicament that it
may prove impossible theoretically to solve the very
problem (mind-body) that mind emerged to cope with
in practice.
Freud's theory of mental origin is given its first
(except for the aborted 1895 Project [1950]) and still
most trenchant expression in the theoretical chapter of
The Interpretation of Dreams (1900). In this part of
my paper, I give an explication of the Freudian metapsychology to address the issues already discussed that
are attracting theoretical neuroscience. Particular importance is given to the relation of mental functioning
to organismic survival (i.e., to its vital needs) and,
consequently, the deep-rooted functional connection
of affect and thought in the human mind. Moreover,
as throughout, I continue to pay special attention to
the scientific accounts of the nature and function of
human consciousness. In this psychoanalytic section,
I try to exhibit consciousness as an active medium in

which affect and thought are interfused aspects of a

unitary organismic activity.
In a special issue of a major psychoanalytic journal on the "rapprochement between psychoanalysis
and neurobiology," the neuroscientist Allan Schore
writes, "Recent psychobiological and neurobiological
studies thus strongly indicate that the concept of the
drive, devalued over the last twenty years, must be
reintroduced as a central construct of psychoanalytic
theory" (1997, p. 827, italics in original). Schore cites
Damasio's research in this connection. Indeed, Damasio repeatedly makes the point that neuropsychological findings from brain-damaged patients show
that emotions interpenetrate with reason from the lowest to highest levels (neurally, in the amygdala and
ventromedial prefrontal cortex). In agreement with
Edelman and Changeux (1985), Damasio holds that
feelings are powerful manifestations of basic regulatory survival instincts and drives. Subcortical (hypothalamic and brain stem) drive processes infuse the
cortical mechanisms of rationality. Emotions function
cognitively to furnish "a glimpse of the organism"
that serves for mapping bodily signals into the structure of thought. The mind had to be first about the
body, and the body representation is the brain's permanent "ground reference" for the mutual structuring
of the object world and the brain itself. "The ego is
first and foremost a bodily ego" (Freud, 1923, p. 26).
Even rudimentary perception involves an "acting on
the environment" with regulatory aims. It is notable
(and somewhat ironic) that neuroscience appears to
confirm basic drive theory against important biologically inspired ego psychological revisions (Hartmann's [1964] concept of "primary autonomous ego
apparatuses' ,).
The "primacy of the body" also has developmental significance in neurobiology. Innate circuits in
the brain whose function is to regulate body functions
and to ensure the organism's survival, determine ontogenesis by influencing the design of neuronal circuits
representing the evolving body and its interaction with
the world. Individual "experience," pertaining especially to vital needs, therefore shapes brain development (Damasio, 1994). Moreover, this circuit design
is repeatedly pliable and modifiable by continued experiences. The integral connection of emotion and reason is given its most explicit formulation in Damasio's
"somatic marker hypothesis," which I discuss below.
Returning to psychoanalysis: One of Freud's fundamental discoveries about human (particularly, childhood) sexuality concerns its "anaclitic origin." On
this hypothesis, sexuality arises in the individual as a

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Integrating Mind and Brain

concomitant effect during the experience and satisfaction of vital, organismic needs, and only gradually
breaks out as an identifiable separate (viz. sexual) activity. For Freud (1905), sexuality, in its genesis,
"leans upon" the "vital" instincts. We see that for
Damasio (and Edelman, among others), the entire
mind is postulated to have such anaclitic origin, with
brain development deriving primarily from the living
out of vital needs. Freud has been criticized for insisting on an ultimate sexual reference for even the
most operational functions (eating, seeing, moving,
etc.). In light of Damasio's radical thesis, one might
say that Freud establishes that human sexuality (for
instance, narcissism) mediates this global connection
of all mental functioning to purely somatic, nonmental
objectives (e.g, homeostasis). Psychoanalytic theory,
in effect, interpolates a theoretical stratum of sexuality
(the psychophysical entity par excellence) between the
levels of body and mind.

The Phenomenology of Wishing

Freud's theory of the mechanism of wishing is found
in the seventh chapter of The Interpretation of
Dreams. To further discuss consciousness, I will summarize a phenomenological account of this theory
which I have developed in several papers (Opatow,
1989, 1993, 1997). In Freud's basic metapsychology,
the primitive psyche, concerned with keeping itself
free of stimulus (thus enacting the constancy principle,
a precursor of homeostasis) is forced to develop beyond reflex discharge. This occurs when the stimulus,
rather than be environmental, arises, inescapably,
from within the somatic substrate of the psyche. These
inner stimuli constitute the major somatic needs (with
the prototype, hunger). The event (i.e., feeding) that
brings the extinction of this inner source of excitation
is called by Freud, an "experience of satisfaction."
The memory trace of the perceptual image that accompanies "satisfaction" becomes, in consequence,
something psychically valued. This is true for Damasio
as well. Objects acquire affective importance (as
"good" or "bad") only through their association with
feelings of pleasure and pain. As Schore indicated and
Damasio affirms, neuroscience supports "drive theory," right down to its implications for the standing
of the object. Object investments are not pregiven.
They become psychically important in order to provide a perceptual mediation for need satisfaction. The
particular object is circumstantially contingent on the
experience of need. For instance, in feeding, the asso-

103
ciated perceptual mnemic trace may be that of the
mother's hand, hair, clothing, etc., which becomes,
henceforth, the "object of the drive." In the history
of psychoanalysis, this view contrasts sharply with
schools of "object relations theory," where the valuation of specific objects is postulated as developmentally a priori (hard-wired).
Freud asserts that the next time the vital need
occurs a mental impulse will emerge to recontact the
associated mnemic percept. As this contact is made,
the conscious experience of this memory must be, at
first, phenomenologically indistinguishable from its
perception. The mnemic image is therefore affirmed
as present and is, thus, hallucinated. This is the celebrated Freudian notion of "hallucinatory wish fulfillment,' , a mental activity that was originally
inferred from dreams.
This fulfillment is dashed by the' 'bitter experience of life": Satisfaction (real milk) cannot be hallucinated. "Satisfaction does not follow; the need
persists" (Freud, 1900, p. 566). The "object" of desire, in bringing not pleasure, but pain, will, hence, be
rejected. Phenomenologically, this repudiation is an
inner distancing that converts the hallucinatory itmnediacy of sense into an explicit experiential memory
("in the past"). Furthermore, this withdrawal (or recoil) of consciousness "makes room," in awareness,
for syncretic images to take on determinate definition
as distinct objects. In the rejection of the hallucinated
image, consciousness negates sensations by attributing
them to objects (as properties), rather than be merely
assailed by them (as in hallucination). The first object,
hence, crystallizes as "the breast as absent" (past,
lost, etc.).2
For a theory of thinking, we note a hierarchy of
negation-a hierarchy that starts with pain. Instinctual
pain of mounting need is, like a toothache, simultaneously mental and physical. Theoretically, marking an
original identity of psyche and soma, it serves also to
indicate an incipient mental emergence. Organismic
distress becomes the experiential consciousness of
pain. The one way that the mind can become active in
relation to this pain, an experience of being passively
overwhelmed, is to institute a negation. This act of
negation, although mental, is not merely syntactical or
logical. It pertains, rather, to the negativity of consciousness. This refers to the act of reflection in which
2 Regarding the wish as the genesis of consciousness, compare Edelman: "It is the discriminative comparison between a value-dominated
memory . .. and the current ongoing perceptual categorization that generates primary consciousness of objects and events" (1989, p. 155; emphasis added).

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104

consciousness rejects the immediacy of experience to

become aware of awareness. This conscious reflection
has momentous importance for the development of
thought. I discuss this below. For now, I expressly
state that the primary organismic distress (for instance,
hunger) is, theoretically, a negation-one occurring on
the level of brute existence, and linked, biologically,
to death. This discord connotes, therefore, not so much
a negation by the organism as one of the organism.
As the hierarchy of negations (that leads to thought)
begins to assemble, this organismic negation is first
experienced passively, and simply undergone. The
distress is then taken up by consciousness (as felt
pain), ascribed to a percept (the syncretic hallucination), and rejected forthwith. In this affective repudiation, consciousness reflects out of the hallucinated
immediacy of sense, and, in becoming aware of awareness (a distinction within consciousness), faces a determinate object, one that can bear specific properties.
Thus, reflection generates the empirical object.
Kant demonstrates in the Critique ofPure Reason
(1781) that the experience of objects involves a mental
process in which the influx of sense is met by a power
of intelligence and bound to conceptual categories.
This binding involves "transcendental apperception,"
the primordial self-consciousness that generates conceptual (i.e., objective) experience. I mentioned that,
according to Edelman, it may be just this conceptforming function of consciousness that accounts for its
selectional advantage (1989, p. 146). Searle explicitly
relates this Kantian doctrine to the' 'binding problem"
in neuroscience-the problem of how the brain
achieves the unified awareness of diverse features of
experienced objects (1992, p. 130).3 For Kant, this
generative process concerns activities of synthesis and
negation that proceed on a level called "transcendental logic." Transcendental refers to the deep mental
conditions for the possibility for worldly objects to be
experienced at all. Formal logic, in contrast, operates
more superficially, and designates the relational rules
that obtain for these objects once they exist. These
Kantian conceptions (with differing terminology) are
prevalent in contemporary cognitive science.
Schweiger, for instance, writes, "consciousness implicates the ability to construct a three-dimensional reality with individual objects in it. Such reality permits
manipulation of objects, even in their absence, ... as
in abstract thinking" (1998, p. 109).
3 Brouwer (1949), the post-Kantian mathematical logician, held that
reflective consciousness generates the basic concept of identity in difference, which he calls "two-icity."

Barry Opatow

In the psychoanalytic theory of thinking, these

generative processes are embedded within the desire
of a living being-"the cradle of conscious experience." The affective rejection of hallucination is a
negation within consciousness that, as described
above, gives rise to empirical objects. Furthermore,
such acts of repudiation, which begin by targeting one
hallucination at a time, issue in a structured inhibition
of the entire modality of hallucinatory wish fulfillment. This structured inhibition marks the "primal
repression" of a whole primitive form of mental functioning and experience (Opatow, 1993). The structuralization of objective experience therefore arises from
an act of repression. Primal repression, hence, indicates the next step in the hierarchy of negation. It
furnishes a standing negation that constitutes (on the
level of transcendental logic) not merely individual
empirical objects but a whole experiential object
world. It is, moreover, worth noting that, for psychoanalytic theory, these objects are conceived first and
foremost in the experience of desire (their' 'cradle' '),
and that desired objects continue to provide the template for all objects as intended in perception and
knowledge.
Further implications follow for the theory of
thinking. I described how the conditions of satisfaction
insure that the first object originates as "the breast as
absent." Indeed, cognition properly (that is, symbolically) begins when the pain of instinctual need becomes experienced as lack, a negation that constitutes
the wish, an awareness that something could be absent.
In the negative hierarchy, conceptual negation is what
the mind does with instinctual pain. The failed hallucination, as rejected, is hence, convertible to a representation-something standing for an absence-and,
thus, becomes available for symbolic processing. Furthermore, this structured, sustained inhibition of hallucination upholds the unified level of representation
which is required for symbolic thought (Kitcher,
1990). Cognitive operations of logical negation, and
syntax in general, can now be applied to the elements
of the object world. 4 It follows that the entire hierarchy
of negation is unconsciously operative in the logical
negations in consciousness. 5 We are therefore afforded
a view of how affects are hierarchically lifted into
the structures of thought. This accords with, but goes
4 Accordingly, recent cognitive studies find symbolic capacities in the
first weeks of life (Spelke, 1988; Mandler, 1990).
5 This fits with Freud's (1925) derivation of intellectual judgments
from instinctual processes. It is illustrated, also, in his phenomenological
deduction of basic experiential categories, such as, internal-external, from
the primal opposition of pleasure and pain (1915a).

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Integrating Mind and Brain

beyond, Damasio' s ' 'somatic marker hypothesis,"
which holds that certain aspects of emotion ("gut feelings' ') are indispensable for rationality, especially for
practical decision making. I have tried to show that,
for psychoanalytic theory, affect and thought are even
more deeply linked: Affects are integral to the very
possibility of thought.
It should now be clear what I mean by the claim
that, for consciousness to be truly nonepiphenomenal
(that is, have causal effects in mental functioning),
consciousness must exhibit certain intrinsic activities
(for instance, self-reflection). Consciousness is more
than just phenomenal content. This view would appear
to be unconventional. It is not so much that the assertion that phenomenology is intrinsically dynamic is a
position that is actually argued against-the matter
doesn't come up. Either it must seem to many authors
to be obviously wrong or, for some reason, just isn't
thought of. Naturally, I suspect the latter.
An "intrinsic activity" view is, however, supported by some eminent researchers, such as Benjamin
Libet (neurosurgery) and Howard Shevrin (experimental psychology). Libet, for instance, makes the remarkable assertion that, to explain the conscious
control of unconscious intentions, "it would indeed
seem necessary to postulate that conscious control
functions can appear without prior initiation by unconscious cerebral processes" (1985, p. 538; emphasis
added). On this formulation, consciousness acts, in
some circumstances, as a pure spontaneity! Moreover,
in a recent panel discussion, Libet agreed when I suggested that his theory of an experiential "backward
referral in time" implies a mental act that has no neural concomitant (Panel, 1998, p. 913). From another
sector of cognitive science, Shevrin (1998), elegantly
combining experimental neurophysiology with psychoanalysis, hypothesizes that the function of consciousness is to fix a particular content in the
intentional category in which it was first experienced
(e.g., as a perception or a memory, or as a desire or a
belief), a categorization which is retained in the further
mental processing of the content. Shevrin's view
strongly echoes Kant's functional connection of consciousness to experiential concepts. It also confirms
Freud's idea (1917) that consciousness permits discriminative access to reality.
David Chalmers (1996), a philosophical leader of
the exuberant "consciousness studies" movement in
cognitive science, also focuses on the relations between the psychological (viz. the standard causal) and
phenomenological aspects of mind. He agrees with
Searle that physical science can explain only the ob-

105
jective correlates of consciousness, and that they alone
can be represented in brain studies. Certain concepts
straddle the fence between phenomenology and psychology. Pain, for example, is both unpleasant and
aversive (Le., experiential and functional); perception
is both experiential and informational. If, however, a
phenomenological element were required for a mental
function (e.g., for certain kinds of learning), then that
function would be, in Chalmers' view, inexplicable
by physical science. Chalmers posits as a relational
principle that experiential consciousness is a correlate
to information that is "globally accessible" in
mind-brain functioning. He believes that this correlation between conscious experience and cognitive
"awareness," in which psychology and phenomenology "do not float free from each other" but are systematically (though inexplicably) linked, strongly
suggests the existence of phenomenal causation. He
formulates a principle of "structural coherence" in
which the "difference structure" of subjective experience is mirrored isomorphically in the informational
structure of psychological awareness. This leads him
speculatively to the familiar supposition that the causal
role of experience bears on the formation of concepts.
Indeed, he avers, perhaps phenomenology furnishes a
necessary substrate in which to ground the differencestructure of information (pp. 304-305). He realizes
where this leads: "I have resisted mind-body dualism
for a long time, but I have come to the point
where ... I think that dualism is very likely true" (p.
357). The Cambridge psychologist, Anthony Marcel
(1988), largely concurs with these views regarding the
causal effects of consciousness, the role of concept
formation, and the implied suggestion of some form
of dualism. This disturbing (yet, it appears, inevitable)
conclusion seems the likely reason why the possibility
of a phenomenological dynamism usually doesn't
come up in psychological explorations of the role of
consciousness.
Furthermore, how one views consciousness has,
in this regard, important bearing on the concept of the
unconscious, as well. This link is illustrated in the
work of the prominent philosopher of mind, John
Searle. Searle believes that, as consciousness has a
subjective "first person" ontology, it is forever irreducible to any objective events "representable in the
brain. ' , Furthermore, "the ontology of the unconscious consists in objective features of the brain capable of causing subjective conscious thoughts" (1992,
p. 160). "The concept of unconscious intentionality
is that of a latency relative to its manifestation in consciousness" (p. 161). Searle refers to his view as a

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106

"dispositional" analysis of the unconscious. The unconscious consists in a disposition to cause conscious
mental states. However, unlike consciousness, the unconscious exists in its own right in certain neural features of the brain, namely, those causing conscious
intentional states. Ontologically, "there are brute,
blind neurophysiological processes and there is consciousness, but there is nothing else" (1992, p. 228).
For Searle, there is simply no place for a mental level
of unconscious activity. Searle seems not to consider
that consciousness could have a real, inner dynamic
structure. That is, possess a mental dynamism that operates outside of awareness to generate and sustain
conscious phenomenology.
As I argued above, psychoanalysis postulates that
our experiential world of spatiotemporal, differentiated objects arises from a continuous negation (first
involving conscious reflection) of a syncretic, primitive mode of experience. The organizational principles
of objective awareness are sustained by this repression. Repression, then, is constitutive for the human
subject. Ordinary experience must therefore endure
under permanent strain. It is upheld through mental
work and effort, and is always tending to release this
strain and fall back to its ground-structure (hallucination). As a compromise between the two experiential
trends (viz. the reality and pleasure principles [Freud,
1911]), all "objective perception" is infused with hallucinatory remnants. This structuring of experience
can be psychoanalytically studied under the basic conception that the "transference" illusions pervading
experience are dynamically caused by unconscious
fantasies.

Conclusion: Psychoanalysis and Neuroscience

The interdisciplinary project to which this journal is
dedicated rests on the capacity to formulate "bridging
principles" linking vastly distinct sciences. According
to Marshall Edelson, a psychoanalyst who has thought
deeply about this task, "the objective of every science
is to discover patterns or regularities in the interrelations among abstracted aspects of phenomena, to locate events in some causal nexus" (1988, p. 129).
Edelson remarks that for bridging concepts between
sciences to be possible, both sciences must have
achieved a sufficient degree of abstraction to admit of
explanatory generalizations of comparable scope. This
is because we are seeking to bridge a steep empirical
divide by finding connections between theoretical
concepts on either side. An impressive example of this

Barry Opatow

methodology is found in the research of Mark Solms,

as influenced by Luria. As Solms points out, "psychological faculties are complicated things, which have
their own complex internal structures, and these structures break down according to the logic of their own
internal construction, not according to the laws of cerebral anatomy" (1993, p. 8). Solms believes that
psychoanalysis can contribute uniquely to conceptualizing these mental structures. He proposes to investigate psychoanalytically the mental aspects of
neurological disease with the aim of correlating underlying mental structure with the observable details of
neurological damage. "In this way, [we] gradually
identify the cerebral representation of ... the human
mental apparatus" (p. 17). This method "enables us
to reduce complex psychological functions down to
the elementary component parts which do correspond
isomorphically with the language and concepts of
anatomy" (p. 15). This structural-eorrelation method
indeed holds considerable promise for advancement
of knowledge in both fields. However, I believe there
awaits a particularly serious challenge-one involving
consciousness-facing those who endeavor to work
"on the bridge."
It is true, of course, that science cannot await the
solution to the problem of consciousness. However,
the time must come when this insolubility must make
itself felt. Consciousness is too important to be left
out for long. For instance, I have tried to show that
conscious activities are crucially involved in the origin
of thought. Furthermore, that the psychoanalytic unconscious and objective, empirical consciousness
emerge conjointly, and remain structurally interconnected. Unconscious and conscious do not exist independently in the mind but, rather, are mutually defined
by their relation (Opatow, 1993). This conception of
the psychoanalytic unconscious accords with Searle's
(1992) "connection principle" for all of cognitive science: Searle contends that there is an intrinsic relation
between consciousness and intentionality (that is,
mental representation, or "aboutness"); only a conscious being could have intentional states at all; unconscious intentionality is defined in terms of potential
accessibility [connection] to consciousness. (Of
course, I strongly disagree with Searle's denial of a
real mental unconscious.) A vital tie therefore exists
between the unconscious and consciousness. The research method of bracketing consciousness in order to
study the unconscious can only be justified (and truly
productive) as a provisional strategy.
The bridging project must contend with critical
differences in the conditions that prevail on either

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Integrating Mind and Brain

side. In the physical sciences, there is one fundamental
process for the generation of events: the process of
causation, expressible in causal laws. These causal
laws can be isomorphically mapped onto laws in other
sciences and, in this way, conceptual bridges are
formed. Perhaps the best known example of this intertheoretic correlation is the one linking thermodynamics (e.g., the concept of temperature) and statistical
mechanics (e.g., molecular energy). Neuroscience is
such a physical science and, therefore, admits of being
mapped onto an array of sciences that rest on the law
of cause and effect (neurochemical, computational,
etc.). On the other hand, in psychoanalysis, as a science of subjective experience, something else is going
on in addition to causal events. There is a second kind
of fundamental generative process. This formative activity is best seen not as causal, but constitutive. Thus,
for example, conscious and unconscious are mutually
constitutive. The unconscious constitutes the consciousness which it, at the same time, perturbs. It is
problematic how these constitutive events involving
consciousness can be represented in a physical science
(i.e., "in the brain").
I mentioned earlier the crucial psychoanalytic
idea that experiential events, such as transference illusions, can be conceived as causal effects of unconscious fantasies. This basic conception informs the
clinical understanding of symptoms, traits, dreams,
parapraxes-in short, all of the disruptions in the coherent experience of consciousness. Causal laws are
therefore clearly important in clinical psychoanalytic
theory (Opatow, 1998). Indeed, Shevrin, Bond,
Brakel, Hertel, and Williams (1996) have convincingly demonstrated the existence of the psychoanalytic
unconscious by mapping its effects onto neural events
by a method of causal correlations. However, in discussing the "hierarchy of negations," I emphasized
another process of generation, one that is paramount
in the structuring of experience. This process is constitutive, not causal.
One main strategy for comprising the mental and
physical in a unitary conception utilizes the idea of
complementarity. On this view, first-person (subjective) and third-person (objective) descriptions of
mind-brain events are mutually irreducible perspectives on a single underlying substrate. "A complete
psychology requires both" (Velmans, 1991, p. 667).
This complementary principle is, in fact, a version of
dual-aspect' 'identity" theory associated most prominently with Spinoza (1677; Wartofsky 1973). According to this doctrine, reality is ontologically one,
although known to our minds under distinct attributes

107
of extension (physics) and thought (psychology). Generative processes run isomorphically within each domain, and never cross between them. There is no
causal interaction of body and mind. However, as each
attribute has identical basic organizational structure,
our knowledge of one can inform the other. This principle therefore validates the method of structural correlations. However, an important feature of this
complementary principle is that structural identity obtains completely only at the level of the most basic
processes. Notwithstanding the enormous progress in
neuroscience, there is no reason to believe that this
fundamental epistemic level (which may differ from
the current level of the synapse) has yet to be reached
(cf. Penrose [1989] and Stapp [1993], above). Thus,
even accepting the complementary principle as ultimately true, a question remains as to when to invoke
it. For instance, as discussed above, cognitive science
has, as yet, not explained the close connection between
focal attentive processing and conscious awareness.
There is a strong voice in neuroscience saying that
consciousness, in its experiential aspects, is not epiphenomenal. This means that according to the best
theories of the mind and the brain now available, experiential events can "cross over," and have causal effects in neural functioning (Gottlieb, 1991). Even
within psychoanalysis, consider that the function of
all defense is to allay conscious unpleasure. Conscious
unpleasure provides the motive for the mechanisms of
defense (Freud, 1915b; Brenner, 1982). Thus, I believe
that productive research is best served by maintaining
a position of interactionism between the domains.
Consider, for example, the neurological finding
that "stress" from whatever cause, by releasing cortisol, impairs the "high road" hippocampal control of
the amygdala and thus increases general susceptibility
to symptomatic anxiety (Pally, 1998). Here, a psychological vulnerability is being explained on the basis of
a purely neurochemical process. Now, juxtapose this
formulation with the corresponding psychoanalytic
hypothesis that "stress" (from whatever cause) acts
to confirm the reality of certain unconscious dangers,
and would thus have a destabilizing (anxiety releasing)
effect on drive~efense configurations in general. It
seems to me that, in this example, each perspective
not only complements the other, but informs it in a
way that furthers integration.
I agree with Libet when he states, "to adopt
[complementarity] in a rigid form would tend to inhibit further experimental exploration of the possibilities of causal interaction between neural and conscious
states" (1991, p. 686). To assert as definitive the con-

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108
ventional view that "there is no frontier between mind
and body.... Mind is an aspect of cerebral functioning" (Brenner 1982, p. 20), prematurely reduces the
role of the mental, and risks foreclosing further empirical and conceptual research.
I will conclude this paper by considering what is
perhaps the current "interactive" frontier in theoretical neuroscience: the issue of the "binding problem."
As Llinas and Pare put it, "the essence of brain functioning seems, to us, to be that of generating the functional scaffolding required to create an internal image
consistent with external reality [note: an essential
function identical to that assigned to the 'psychical
apparatus' in The Interpretation of Dreams]. And
more importantly, such a consistent image of reality,
requires that inputs from different sensory modalities
coalesce into a singular perceptual event. Interestingly ... the connectivity [involved in the brain]
allows a cognitive capacity to be truly a priori" (1991,
p. 525; emphasis added). I have already discussed the
relation between consciousness, empirical categories,
and the structuring of objective experience. Either
consciousness is epiphenomenal, or phenomenology is
necessary to reflection and synthesis. If we assume
that conscious reflection is involved in the formation
of experiential concepts, how would this process impact on what can be represented in the brain?
In reflective awareness, what was merely lived
through is set out and objectified (Sartre, 1937). Conscious reflection produces the intentional object. I hypothesize that this object-pole of consciousness would
have an identifiable (objective) neural counterpart,
even if the reflective activity itself has none. Be it
physical or phenomenological, object is commensurate
with object. According to the present conception, the
object synthesis is first effected in consciousness, on
the level of the phenomenal object. 6 Once this binding
occurs, a neural correlate is concomitantly formed,
which then can act as a physical cause, and produce
further neural effects. The integration problem of mind
and brain can, therefore, be uniquely advanced by
homing in on the deep physical mechanism of this
6 This fits with Merleau-Ponty's findings on clinical data from diplopia and synesthesia: "The sight of one single object is not the outcome of
focusing the eyes, [rather the object] is anticipated in the very act of
focusing. The focusing of the gaze is a prospective activity ... The unity
of the object is intentional" (1945, p. 232). Therefore, the intentional act
brings about the unification of the object, and only then the unity of the
senses. The intentional object unifies the senses and not the other way
around. Compare with Crick's homologous formulation: "The main function of the attention mechanism would be to select an object for attention
['controlling a spotlight of attention'] and then help to synchronize the
coalition of all the relevant neurons that correspond [in the brain]" (1994,
p. 245; emphasis added).

Barry Opatow
binding. Currently, the leading candidate hypothesis
involves intrinsic membrane properties generating
synchronous oscillations globally across the cortex (an
enigma, according to Crick, 1994). Other possibilities
are forms of neural holography (Pribram, 1971;
O'Keefe, 1985), and quantum coherences in nonneuronal brain elements (Hameroff, 1994). The actual
mechanism has not yet been identified. Something
physical in the brain represents object integration. Settling this issue would seem a straightforward matter
of diligent empirical research. But, whatever it may
turn out to be, its inception corresponds to a constitutive act of consciousness.
Science advances by solving problems until it encounters a phenomenon which, after persistent effort,
remains not only puzzling, but conceptually incongruous-a logical singularity in the science. The study of
consciousness, however, places one in special circumstances. In consciousness, we have something which
we already know to be a true anomaly. Elucidating its
physical mechanism would, then, either bring us to the
limits of knowledge, or, as did black-body radiation a
century ago, point the way to a whole new paradigm
for science.

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Barry Opatow
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e-mail: opatow@erols.com