Trying to Fathom the Human Condition, Letter by Alan Eisnitz to the New York Times on July 17th, 2008.
To the Editor:
David Brooks writes how scientists view human behavior, motivation and feelings as influenced by genetics, brain mechanisms and interactions over time with a complex environment and the people in it. This is precisely the area in which psychoanalysis works.
Psychoanalysis today aims to understand and eliminate negative forces in a person’s “transference” — the emotions and predispositions, both conscious and unconscious, from that person’s present and past experiences as they come to life as motivational forces in the present, and in particular in the treatment and toward others in the patient’s life.
I believe that much could be learned if shifts in the transference could, if possible, be studied as they occur, by methods of brain study now available, and as they develop, and their findings correlated with the psychoanalytic findings.
The human personality is exceedingly complex and multidimensional, but we are learning more and more about it by observational, as in psychoanalysis, and other sophisticated means that are evolving. Alan J. Eisnitz
Boca Raton, Fla., July 15, 2008
The writer is a retired psychiatrist and psychoanalyst.