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THE NEW YORK PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIETY & INSTITUTE:
Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis
247 East 82nd St., between 2nd & 3rd, NY, NY, 10028
Saturday, November 6, 2010
10 a.m.
Testing Psychoanalysis in the Scanner:
Current Neuropsychoanalytic Research
At our November meeting, a panel of young investigators conducting fMRI research will discuss their ongoing studies. They will review the background of their particular research questions, discuss some of the challenges and solutions they have encountered in operationalizing their psychoanalytic constructs, and, where possible, present pilot data.
This exciting program will be educational for clinicians interested in processes that are relevant to day-to-day work in the consulting room, and provide a basis for those interested in research to think about how we go about developing proper neuropsychoanalytic studies.
Panel:
Trait and Emotion Appraisal in Borderline Personality Disorder: Social Psychological and Neural Findings
Eric A. Fertuck, Ph.D., City University of New York, New York State Psychiatric Institute, and the Columbia University Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research
Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a serious syndrome that is partly characterized by unstable interpersonal relationships and frantic efforts to avoid abandonment. Despite a long psychoanalytic tradition of theorizing about these symptoms, only recently have the social and cognitive bases for these impairments begun to be illuminated through empirical research. This presentation will outline a series of studies that investigate the social cognition of BPD using social psychological, psychophysical, and neural approaches. The relevance of these findings for psychoanalysis will be discussed.
Mental Representation, Social Cognition, and Functional Neuroimaging: A Multi-Level Approach to Borderline Personality Disorder
Jeffrey K. Erbe, M.Sc., The Graduate Center (CUNY) and New York State Psychiatric Institute
This research project focuses on the intersection of neuroimaging, social cognition, and narrative assessment of mental representations using the Object Relations Inventory (ORI) and the Adult Attachment Interview (AAI). By investigating multiple levels of BPD, the concordance between subjective experience, appraisal of social stimuli, and regional brain activation can be rigorously investigated.
Borderline Personality Disorder, Schizotypal Personality Disorder, and Empathic Accuracy
Luis Ripoll, M.D., Mt. Sinai School of Medicine
This research project seeks to better understand the interpersonal dysfunction in borderline personality disorder (BPD) and schizotypal personality disorder (SPD) and investigate the underlying neurobiology for this aspect of psychopathology, and different avenues of treatment. Although still in the early phases of data collection, I will present background research in affective processing and alexithymia in BPD, and a research plan for further understanding dysfunctional mentalizing in these personality disorders. The focus will be on a well-validated, naturalistic Empathic Accuracy paradigm, relying on matching perceivers’ efforts at emotional state attribution of a target to the target’s own self-appraisal of their emotional state. Future research utilizing this paradigm and psychoanalytic implications will also be discussed.
Can Fear Be Reduced Without Awareness? A Neuropsychoanalytic Paradigm
Paul Siegel, Ph.D., Purchase College, State University of New York
Although Freud’s idea of unconscious conflict is perhaps his most enduring intellectual legacy, experimental demonstrations of unconscious conflict are rare. This study tested whether unconscious exposure to phobic stimuli can reduce fear, by comparing the effects of conscious and unconscious exposure to a live tarantula. We found a double dissociation: unconscious exposure reduced avoidance of the tarantula and did not affect subjective distress, whereas conscious exposure increased distress but did not affect avoidance. Theoretical implications will be discussed, given that experiments have rarely been able to pit psychoanalytic and cognitive-behavioral theory against each other.
For information about NYPSI training programs please visit us at www.psychoanalysis.org