MSc in Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies

Philosophy, Psychoanalysis and Science
Autumn term 2009
Coordinator- Dr Jim Hopkins

The aim of this course is to study how theory and data are related in psychoanalytic reasoning, and how psychoanalytic claims relate to those in other disciplines which also bear on the mind, including developmental and clinical psychology, neuroscience, and evolution.

Topics and readings for the seminars: (These are approximate, as topics may not cover exactly one seminar, and can be varied in accord with student interest, etc.)

Some additional handouts and powerpoints will be available at the seminars, and if I find better basic readings I will announce and circulate them as well. Students interested in additional readings can find a fair number in the topic folders, but since the fields are so complicated it may be useful to ask me about particular topics.

Seminar 1: Some basic ideas (this may extend into the second seminar, with which it is closely connected):
Friday 2nd October 12.30-2.00pm

i) inference to the best explanation
ii) representation and mental representation; depictive and directive representation.
iii) commonsense psychological explanation (desire, belief, perception, emotion, conflict)
iv) some psychoanalytic concepts: identification, projection, internal narratives and figures
v) the overall role of identification and projection in the human sciences
vi) wish fulfilment.

Basic reading: JH ‘Psychoanalytic and scientific reasoning’ (start to read), ‘The shadow that refuses to disappear’.

Additional Reading (and good background): Wellman ‘Everyday Mentalistic Psychology’

Seminar 2: Dreams: wishfulfilment, conflict, and Freud’s interpretive method using free association.
Friday 9th October 12.30-2.00pm

Basic reading: Freud ‘Analysis of a specimen dream’ (the dream of Irma’s injection’, JH ‘Freud and the Science of Mind’ (start to read)

Seminar 3: Psychoanalysis and symbolism, with relation to Lakoff’s account of conceptual metaphor.
Friday 16th October 12.30-2.00pm

Basic reading: Lakoff ‘The contemporary theory of metaphor’, JH ‘Psychoanalysis, metaphor, and the concept of mind’ (through section 8 only).

Seminar 4: Psychoanalysis and the neuroscience of motivation (introductory).
Friday 23rd October 12.30-2.00pm

Basic reading: Solms and Turnbull The Brain and the Inner World Ch 4 ‘Emotions and Motivation’, Ch 6 ‘Dreams and Hallucinations’ Handout on development.

Additional readings in folders marked ‘Neuroscience’.

Seminar 5: Conflict, neurosis, childhood, and the moralistic super-ego.
Friday 30th October 12.30-2.00pm

Basic reading: Freud ‘Notes upon a case of obsessional neurosis’ (The case of the Rat Man) and ‘Addendum: Original record of the case’ [Freud’s case notes]

Seminar 6: Infantile conflict and psychosis.
Friday 6th November 12.30-2.00pm

Basic readings: Melanie Klein: ‘Development of a child’, ‘Narrative of a child analysis’ (first two sessions); JH ‘Synthesis in the imagination’; Segal ‘The paranoid-schizoid position’

*SEMINARS 7-10 WILL BE RE-SCHEDULED IN THE SPRING TERM!!! DATES TO BE CONFIRMED*

Seminar 7: Attachment, conflict, and development.
Friday 20th November 12.30-2.00pm

Basic reading: Solomon and George ‘Measuring the security of attachment’, Hesse ‘The adult attachment interview’.

Additional reading to be suggested.

Seminar 8: Psychoanalysis, evolution, and conflict.
Friday 27th November 12.30-2.00pm

Basic reading: JH ‘Notes on psychoanalysis and evolution’ to be handed out.

Additional readings in folder.

Seminar 9: Philosophical critiques of psychoanalysis
Friday 4th December 12.30-2.00pm

Basic reading: Popper ‘Conjectures and refutations’ (selection)

Grunbaum ‘Precis of The foundations of psychoanalysis’

JH ‘Epistemology and depth psychology’

Recent outcome research (in folder)

Seminar 10: Psychoanalysis and social phenomena: the nature and direction of human aggression.
Friday 11th December 12.30-2.00pm

JH ‘Emotion, evolution, and conflict’

Additional reading to be suggested.