title: Further evidence for the case against neuropsychoanalysis: How Yovell, Solms, and Fotopoulou's response to our critique confirms the irrelevance and harmfulness to psychoanalysis of the contemporary neuroscientific trend.
abstract: In their paper "The case for neuropsychoanalysis" Yovell, Solms, and Fotopoulou (2015) respond to our critique of neuropsychoanalysis (Blass & Carmeli, 2007), setting forth evidence and arguments which, they claim, demonstrate why neuroscience is relevant and important for psychoanalysis and hence why dialogue between the fields is necessary. In the present paper we carefully examine their evidence and arguments and demonstrate how and why their claim is completely mistaken. In fact, Yovell, Solms, and Fotopoulou's paper only confirms our position on the irrelevance and harmfulness to psychoanalysis of the contemporary neuroscientific trend. We show how this trend perverts the essential nature of psychoanalysis and of how it is practiced. The clinical impact and its detrimental nature is highlighted by discussion of clinical material presented by Yovell et al (2015). In the light of this we argue that the debate over neuropsychoanalysis should be of interest to all psychoanalysts, not only those concerned with biology or interdisciplinary dialogue.
authors.affiliation: Heythrop College, The University of London, 23 Kensington Square, London W8 5HN, UK. rblass@ucl.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Rachel B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Blass
authors.affiliation: The Department of Psychology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel , 91905. zcarmeli@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Zvi
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Carmeli
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D033183:Interdisciplinary Communication; D009488:Neurosciences / Q000639:trends; D011572:Psychoanalysis / Q000639:trends
keywords: biological reductionism; biologism; essence of psychoanalysis; meaning; meaningfulness; neuropsychoanalysis; neuroscience; psychoanalysis; scientific status; validation of psychoanalysis