title: Alpha synchronization as a brain model for unconscious defense: An overview of the work of Howard Shevrin and his team.
abstract: Howard Shevrin and his team have developed a stringent subliminal priming methodology, which experimentally approximates a situation of an internal, mental triggering of unconscious defense. Through a series of four studies they thus are able to bring evidence for this type of unconscious defense. With event-related potentials, three clinical studies show how synchronization of a specific brain wave, the alpha wave, known for its inhibitory function, is also induced by subliminally presented conflictual subject-specific stimuli. Therefore, alpha synchronization could serve as the brain mechanism of unconscious defense. The results only make sense if we suppose the existence of a dynamic unconscious, which has inherited childhood conflicts, and with privileged connections to neurotic symptom characteristics. Moreover, by showing that the unconscious conflict phrases, inferred by clinicians from clinical interviews, have a similar brain behavior, Shevrin and his team provide evidence that these inferences are not simply clinician-dependent subjective interpretations but also imply some form of independent mental reality. Finally, interpretation of the results has led us to propose two distinct physiological mechanisms for defense: one, unconscious defense, by alpha synchronization in connection with the drive derivatives, and another, repression, based on the indications of reality in connection with the ego.
authors.affiliation: Service de Psychologie Clinique et Différentielle, Centre de Recherche en Psychologie Clinique, Psychopathologie et Psychosomatique, Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) - CP122, 50, Avenue Frankin Roosevelt, B-1050, Bruxelles.
authors.forename: Ariane
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bazan
mesh_terms: D000513:Alpha Rhythm / Q000502:physiology*; D003344:Cortical Synchronization / Q000502:physiology*; D003674:Defense Mechanisms; D005071:Evoked Potentials / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D013360:Subliminal Stimulation; D014473:Unconscious, Psychology
keywords: Freud; Shevrin; alpha; brain; defense; empirical; repression; subliminal; unconscious