Introduction To Dall’Aglio and Solms

Neuropsychoanalysis

Dall’Aglio’s comprehensive contribution speaks for Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis. In itself, it is a massive work of integration, in which Dall’Aglio devotes an entire part to neuropsychoanalysis, including an explication of Solms’s neuropsychoanalytic model of Karl Friston’s free energy principle (Friston et al. 2010) and a defense of neuropsychoanalysis against charges of reductionism. Solms’s commentary approaches the dialogue from the perspective of neuropsychoanalysis.

An accessible summary article, “What Is Neuropsychoanalysis?” by Mark Solms and Oliver Turnbull (2011), presents the historical, philosophical, and scientific foundations of neuropsychoanalysis, as well as describing “what neuropsychoanalysis is not.” When the article was published, the journal Neuropsychoanalysis was in its thirteenth year of publication. The term neuropsychoanalysis was introduced in 1999 in the first issue of the journal. In the summary article Solms and Turnbull write that “neuropsychoanalysis is not (in our opinion) a ‘school’ of psychoanalysis, in the way that we currently speak of Freudian, Kleinian, Intersubjective, and Self Psychology schools. Neuropsychoanalysis, we feel, is far better conceptualized as a link between all of psychoanalysis and the neurosciences. Alternatively, it might be described as an attempt to insert psychoanalysis into the neurosciences, as a member of the family of neurosciences—the one that studies the mental apparatus from the subjective point of view” (p. 141).

Since that article appeared in 2011, there have been major developments in neuropsychoanalysis. In the realm of theory, perhaps the central development has been the adoption and use of Karl Friston’s free energy principle (Friston 2010), which both Dall’Aglio and Solms address extensively in their contributions here. Other theoretical developments have appeared in relation to Freudian drive theory, the body in psychoanalysis, and consciousness. In the realm of practice, Solms and his colleagues from forty or so regional neuropsychoanalysis groups around the world have written and presented extensively on the clinical implications of theoretical developments within neuropsychoanalysis. It may now be misleading to say that neuropsychoanalysis is not a school of psychoanalysis. While Solms and Turnbull’s statement in 2011 that it is “a link between all of psychoanalysis and the neurosciences” still holds true, its clinical theory, teaching, structure, and practice may place it functionally as a “school” as well. Hence the dialogue between Dall’Aglio and Solms reads well as a contribution to comparative (and not simply pluralistic) streams of psychoanalytic thinking.

John Dall’Aglio

Dall’Aglio’s three-part contribution is titled “Sex and Prediction Error.” With this title, he alludes to a claim that all drives are sexual, in a very particular sense. The inevitable failure of drive to achieve complete satisfaction creates jouissance, a Lacanian term. What is unique about Lacan’s coinage is that the term, which is poorly translated into English as “enjoyment,” contrasts sharply with any simple model of frustration, unpleasure, or Unlust. While drawing on Freud, it radically opens up new possibilities for understanding the mind of the individual when complete satisfaction is inevitably denied. According to Lacan and Dall’Aglio, the failure to find satisfaction is not accidental, but rather a direct consequence of inherent antagonisms between drive’s manifestations in the registers of the real, the imaginary, and the symbolic. As Dall’Aglio writes, “There is something within the drive that opposes full satisfaction: namely, its tendency to seek excess enjoyment along other roads” (p. 697). This excess enjoyment, or jouissance, is a central concept from Lacan. And jouissance is always sexual, in Lacan’s sense of the word. Hence all drives are sexual.

Dall’Aglio’s unique and bold contribution in this article is his thesis that jouissance is surplus prediction error, linking Friston’s concept of prediction error (2010) to jouissance, and thus creating Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis. It is a move aimed at promoting the productive comparison of theories; “the brain,” he writes, “is a potential common ground for different psychoanalytic schools” (p. 694).

The three parts of Dall’Aglio’s contribution are “The Metapsychology of Jouissance,” “Jouissance and the Free Energy Principle in Neuropsychoanalysis,” and “Provoking Prediction Error.” In part 1 he introduces Lacan’s concept. In part 2 he relates jouissance to neuropsychoanalysis, and in part 3 he provides clinical correlations for his ideas. It is in the second part that he provides a defense of neuropsychoanalysis as “a dialogue, not a reductionistic translation” (p. 716). After considerable exposition on that point, he adds, “I hope this openness on the side of neuroscience will assuage antireductionist objections. Identifying a neural correlate of a psychoanalytic concept does not replace that concept—it opens the door for interdisciplinary suggestions and new ideas” (p. 717). However, it is in part 3 that the new possibilities of thought become clear.

In his reply to Solms, he writes, “As [his] commentary makes clear, linking neuroscience and psychoanalysis opens new frameworks for discussing different analytic views. This is one way neuropsychoanalysis can advance psychoanalytic discourse” (p. 775). Referring to disagreements between his views and those of Solms, he adds that he seeks “not to remedy the disagreement, but to render the questions as precise as possible, in the hope of facilitating future work” (p. 775). I think readers will agree that this is ably accomplished in Dall’Aglio’s and Solms’s contributions.

Mark Solms

Mark Solms has provided a thoughtful response to Dall’Aglio’s papers. Here I’ll take the opportunity to give a more lengthy introduction to Solms’s highly condensed paper, in the hope that it will bring out additional subtleties in the interaction between the interlocutors. The reader might consider looking at my comments on Solms after, rather than before, reading his paper.

In the interaction between Solms and Dall’Aglio, neuropsychoanalysis operates as a psychoanalytic theory that draws on neuroscience, rather than as an inscription of psychoanalysis within neuroscience. As the editor/translator of the Revised Standard Edition of Freud, as well as of The Complete Neuroscientific Papers of Sigmund Freud, Solms uses and appreciates Freud’s work at an unparalleled level. As a neuroscientist himself, he has contributed to our understanding of the neurological accompaniments of dreaming, in ways that clarify how human minds work, while refuting Allan Hobson’s dismissal of Freudian dream theory. Solms aims to “carve mental functions at their joints” (Solms and Turnbull 2002, p. 65).

On the philosophical level, Solms supports dual-aspect monism, which holds that mind and brain are two aspects of a single phenomenon—the mental apparatus. How is it possible then to make the claim that neuropsychoanalysis operates as a psychoanalytic theory rather than an inscription of psychoanalysis within neuroscience, or a hybrid theory? If brain and mind are two aspects of a single thing, does it matter what we call the theory?

It matters because a psychoanalytic theory stands or falls on psychoanalytic grounds. What is important above all is how the theory functions in the mind of an analyst engaged in clinical work. What model of the mind is held in the mind of the analyst at work? (Britton 2015; Kessler and Kessler 2019). What kinds of psychoanalytic interventions are generated in the analyst’s mind when the analyst is emotionally engaged with a patient? (Tuckett 2012; Bernardi 2015). What kinds of discourse about theory and practice take place when the analyst enters into interaction with proponents of other psychoanalytic theories? It is on this level that Solms’s contribution to this dialogue emerges as a generative theory, as it is taken up and discussed in Dall’Aglio’s sophisticated integration of Lacanian theory with neuropsychoanalysis. ¹

What Does The Commentary do for Psychoanalysts?

For practicing psychoanalysts, theories matter in many ways (Kessler and Kessler 2019). Writing about connections between neuroscientific findings and clinical psychoanalytic work, the Kesslers mention that the theoretical concepts that influence analysts’ day-to-day work include an appreciation of the embodied nature of psychoanalytic work, a “deepened and widened . . . empathic scope of psychoanalytic inquiry and therapeutic insight” (p. 583), an enhancement of the analyst’s “metaphor library” (p. 583), an understanding of “how psychology serves and extends the biological imperatives of the human organism” (p. 585), an increased awareness of “what informs therapeutic action” (p. 585), an understanding of the connection between memory reconsolidation and transference, and a more integrated view of metapsychology. Of these many connections, the most significant is the last (see Fisher 2020). While the Kesslers write about neuropsychoanalysis in specific, analogous comments might be made about the ways that theories in general function in the analyst’s preconscious (Gabbard 1998).

What Does The Commentary do for Psychoanalytic Theory?

Dall’Aglio believes “that drawing links to neuroscience can help us step beyond definitional differences and provide coordinates for productive comparison, rather than schisms between master discourses” (p. 777). In furtherance of such comparisons, Solms provides a complex yet lucid response to Dall’Aglio’s material and succeeds in identifying two major points of disagreement: “(1) whether it is helpful to describe the SEEKING drive as ‘sexual,’ even in Freud’s extended sense of the word, and (2) whether Freud’s and Lacan’s conceptions of ‘drive’ can be accommodated within the neuropsychoanalytic conception of homeostasis” (p. 773). Leaving aside the specifics of their disagreements for the moment, this clarity about areas of disagreement promotes a “productive discourse” between theories—a model for what such dialogue should be.

To avoid confusion, Solms clarifies his use of the term “drive”: “For me, the demand for work that is measured by a deviation from the homeostatic settling point for any of our phenotypic needs becomes a ‘drive’ when it is mental (as opposed to autonomic) work that is so demanded. Hence, ‘drive’ is a measure of the demand made upon the ego for work” (p. 769). He agrees with Dall’Aglio that jouissance can be equated with Panksepp’s SEEKING drive (Panksepp 1998) but thinks Dall’Aglio is wrong to equate it with “drive” in general. For Solms, sexuality, or LUST in Panksepp’s taxonomy of emotional systems, is one drive among many. Not only that, but LUST, along with FEAR, RAGE, PANIC/GRIEF, CARE, and PLAY, are all component drives of SEEKING. This statement appears at first to be a significant new development in psychoanalytic theory. On a second look, however, Solms’s hierarchy of drives resembles or restores an aspect of Freud’s early drive theory, in which “self-preservative” (or “ego”) drives were of great importance. In his elevation of the SEEKING drive, however, Solms goes a step farther than Freud did. In contrast to North American ego psychology, in which self-preservation is part of an executive ego, Solms’s use of the SEEKING drive gives it new vitality. He highlights a particular form of activity—epistemic foraging—and sees in it a driven and pleasurable quality. This enables him to place SEEKING (and jouissance) within, rather than outside, homeostasis. ² On the whole, this makes Solms’s theory an optimistic one, in contrast to Dall’Aglio’s and Lacan’s, which seem more in keeping with a tragic vision of psychoanalysis (Schafer 1970).

There are many points in common between the two psychoanalytic theories—Dall’Aglio’s Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis and Solms’s model of neuropsychoanalysis. Solms finds only two areas of disagreement. And yet, they are profound ones. Do they make a clinical difference?

What Does The Commentary do for Psychoanalytic Practice?

Dall’Aglio says that the “failure of prediction” (instinct) leads to sexual enjoyment—an enjoyment beyond pleasure. ³ Dall’Aglio’s (and Lacan’s) human being seems wilder than Solms’s and indeed seems on the verge of being out of control. Solms’s human being has a sophisticated control system in which, under normal circumstances, prediction error tends to be self-correcting, despite the fact that prediction error is never eliminated. Prediction error is how the human knows how to think and act. For Dall’Aglio, surplus prediction error always breaks the rules. This difference leads to clinical differences. Dall’Aglio and Solms agree that the real test of a psychoanalytic theory is in the clinic. Dall’Aglio writes of provoking prediction error, and cites provocative examples from Lacan’s practice, as well as an example from Philip Bromberg, a non-Lacanian, whose interpretation took the form of a laugh. Solms describes “problematizing the patient’s repressed [i.e. prematurely automatized] predictions, as they are enacted in the transference” (p. 773) so they can be thought about. In other words, Solms’s version of neuropsychoanalysis plays with prediction error, while Lacanian analysis provokes it.

What are the clinical consequences of such a difference? Careful observation in a clinical observation group such as the kind called for in the Three-Level Model (Bernardi 2014) might clarify mechanisms of change in a given case. And the resulting observations might support one technique rather than another. But what if in some cases one technique brings about clinical improvement, and in other cases the other technique does? This may be a usual situation in psychoanalysis. Most likely the circumstances of the cases, including the analysts, would be different, yielding differing indications for different techniques in different dyads. That would constitute a rich opportunity for learning more via clinical investigation and systematic research. ⁴ Solms’s commentary, in its precision and clarity, sharpens the conceptual distinctions necessary for such clinical and research learning.

What Does The Commentary do for Freud Scholarship and More General Scholarly Discourse?

“It is insufficiently appreciated,” Solms writes, “that Freud assumed that the satisfaction of the libidinal drive alone is pleasurable . . .” (p. 770). He adds in a footnote that

the German word Lust covers both appetitive and consummatory pleasure, whereas the English “lust” denotes the appetitive variety only. However, when Freud (1905, p. 135) formally introduced the term “libido” he explicitly equated it with appetite and considered “unfortunate” the fact that Lust denotes both appetite and consummation [p. 770 n.2].

Solms concludes that “had Freud been aware of the existence of appetitive pleasure, the puzzle on which Dall’Aglio’s argument pivots [how sexual excitement can be perceived as pleasurable] would never have arisen in the first place” (p. 770). These are not mere fine points of Freud scholarship, but rather indications of how a confusion of tongues between the German Lust and the English “lust” might arise.

On one hand, Freud’s usage was closer to the English meaning. On the other hand, German and English readers are likely to have different emotional experiences when encountering the same four letters, creating misleading similarities and misleading differences between schools. Solms’s scholarship helps redirect the reader to similarities and differences of substance. In this case, Panksepp’s LUST may promote a triangulation of meaning that allows the two writers, Solms and Dall’Aglio, to disagree with one another clearly.

Tucked away in a footnote is Solms’s explication of the concept of the Markov blanket, which “transcends mind/body dualism” (p. 771 n.3). This simple, though relatively unfamiliar, term carries a philosophical impact, and it is helpful for readers to become familiar with it. The concept helps separate variables of interest—psychic variables, in this context—without constraining the variables within predetermined dualistic categories. The Markov blanket formulation supports Friston’s Free Energy Principle, which organizes the concepts of prediction and prediction error. Both Dall’Aglio and Solms make use of Free Energy, prediction, and prediction error to point to a kind of directionality in mental life. And yet, they understand the implications of Free Energy quite differently. Dall’Aglio’s view is that jouissance (or surplus prediction error) “‘drives a hole’ in homeostasis” (p. 700). Solms, more closely aligned with Friston’s intention, holds that homeostasis is not violated. The difference is consequential for both theory and practice.

What Does The Commentary do for Neuropsychoanalysis and Lacanian Neuropsychoanalysis?

Productive Comparison Between the two theories clarifies both of them. This is accomplished partly by the effort at mutual understanding of how words are being used. A second way in which this clarification is accomplished is by creating a dialogue in which each theory interrogates the other with specific questions, creating a conceptual “thirdness.” This can be true whenever two theories meet. However, there is a special comparison available when Dall’Aglio’s comprehensive integration of Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis encounters Solms’s commentary. Both refer to neuroscience, which uses terms that are neutral in relation to psychoanalytic theories. This generates another kind of thirdness, or triangulation (Bernardi 2015), in which a third, nonpsychoanalytic discipline mediates the terms of comparison between the two psychoanalytic theories. The fact that neuroscientific terms are testable in relation to the brain does not give them special status in relation to psychoanalysis. Both writers agree that psychoanalytic propositions must be evaluated in the psychoanalytic clinic. But this quality of being testable in relation to the brain makes neuroscience an evolving field, constantly generating new metaphors that in turn may generate new hypotheses within psychoanalytic metapsychology (Reiser 1985; Kessler and Kessler 2019). Free Energy, as used by Friston and colleagues (Friston et al. 2010), is such an hypothesis. Solms writes that Dall’Aglios’s “translation of Lacan’s concept of jouissance into the language of neuroscience enables me to understand it in a way I never did before. That can only be a good thing; I would not otherwise have appreciated how deeply Lacan understood a driving force in mental life that has only recently come to occupy center stage in affective and computational neuroscience” (p. 767). The encounter between theories in this issue of JAPA is highly productive for each theory.

I believe there is one point of slippage in the encounter between Dall’Aglio and Solms. Solms offers the following charming and gentlemanly comment:

This brings me back to the nub of the matter that these three papers are concerned with: Dall’Aglio claims that we positively enjoy this demand for work. This claim is certainly counterintuitive, but I have to say that the truth of it was abundantly demonstrated by the feeling it evoked in me as I read these papers, and by the feeling I experience now, as I write these words [p. 770].

So far, so good. Better than good—positively enjoyable. But Solms’s enjoyment is not the “strange enjoyment” that Dall’Aglio connects with surplus prediction error. For Solms, the prediction error itself is not pleasurable, but frustrating. Active engagement of the SEEKING drive, in order to reduce prediction error, is what is pleasurable. This is a normal pleasure, within, rather than outside, homeostasis. And hence, what is counterintuitive at first sight has been explained.

I imagine that both Solms and Dall’Aglio are aware that in their written words they are talking past one another on this particular point. And perhaps here, they show us one of the limits of polite scholarly debate. Maintaining positive relationships with colleagues, and privileging the continuing dialogue above proving oneself right on every point, are important values for clinical and theoretical discourse. In this regard, as well as their overall intellectual rigor, both Dall’Aglio and Solms succeed brilliantly. JAPA readers have the good fortune to receive John Dall’Aglios’s comprehensive, long-form theoretical contribution and its careful consideration by Mark Solms. It is not usual for psychoanalytic journals to publish individual pieces as lengthy as Dall’Aglios’s, and, in my view, the choice to do so was an excellent one.