Having worked in psychoanalysis for a few months now, it is worth
bearing in mind that today it bears little resemblance to the models
Freud drew up during the first half of the last century, although his
influence is still undoubtedly enormous.  Not least because Freud
often made it clear that whilst the study of the mind was important,
it should be supported by studies of the brain - studies that Freud
would have pursued had he not been skint (although his early work on
aphasia, for example, is still fairly highly regarded, especially for
its time).

There are people within psychoanalysis who are spending time trying to
marry neuroscience to their work - and this can often allege that
"Freud was right all along!"  There are grains of truth to this, but
neuroscientists are not so bothered with effecting a reverse
relationship with psychoanalysis, and so a situation develops whereby
psychoanalysts are like the kids saying they are part of the gang,
when the gang in fact just ignores them.  Does that make sense?

In spite of some people's work in marrying psychoanalysis and
neuroscience (Eric Kandel especially, but also Peter Fonagy, etc),
psychoanalysts' most common (and, as far as I am concerned very weak)
argument against empirical scientific research to support their
'findings', is that it oversimplifies an organ (the brain) whose
workings are beyond its physicality (and thereby exists the mind) and
that the workings of the mind must somehow be opaque.  In itself this
is perhaps a reasonable thing to say, if - by definition - a little
unquantifiable, but psychoanalysts say as much in such an opaque way
that one gets the impression that they still trying to ignore
neuroscience's advances/trying to find a way of justyifying their
paycheck...

(In terms of clinical treatment, evidence suggests that drug-based
treatment IS beneficial in treating personality disorders (PDs -
justify through use of acronyms!), providing strong support for the
neuroscience argument; but that consultation still has its uses - and
that a combination of the two is most useful.)

(Psychologists have little that is kind to say about psychoanalysis,
but do concede that, of course, the most important thing is for a
human to function as best as possible, and that if psychoanalysis
works for certain individuals, then maybe psychoanalysis is not
useless.  I wnoder whether we should not look at how such hokum [or,
as the less charitable among us might describe psychoanalysis, such
'bollocks'] satisfies the mind...)

I'd be interested to look at Bordwell's adoption of mirror neurons for
a new approach to cinema.  This is something I've been backburning for
a while (too many things to think about!), and am very interested in
the workings of empathy.  The suggestion seems to be that, when we see
someone get hurt, our brain fires the same neurons as happens when we
ourselves get hurt, but that we the viewers do not feel the physical
pain of the sufferer/victim.  What an exciting idea in terms of
developing our understanding of cinematic empathy!

But there are still massive complications to be dealt with as far as
an understanding of cinema would fit in to such a schema/such a schema
would fit in to spectatorship arguments - in terms of point of
view/the possibility of mutliple empathies/provenance or ethnicity of
spectator and characters onscreen, etc, etc, etc....

Interesting literature on mirror neurons/empathy in general (why am I
giving away my secrets?!) includes, in no particular order, Changeux,
Mellman, Leslie/Johnson-Frey/Grafton, Lohmar, Suzanne Keen, Victor
Nell, etc, etc, etc).  And the popularity of Damasio, Lakoff/Johnson
also ties in with certain areas of such arguments.  And am I wrong in
thinking that an embodied brain is not a recurrent idea throughout the
history of ideas - and that an embodied brain [not the same as an
embodied mind?] might also support such an approach?

[But I still think such an approach would leave room for more
specifically physiological approaches to cinema...]

Ah.  Rant over.  Monday mornings, eh...?

w

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