Neuroscience in the Residency Curriculum: The Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Perspective

Educators of future psychiatrists tend to teach an array of approaches to the mind and brain, including among them the neurobiologic perspective and the psychoanalytic perspective. These may be considered at opposite ends of many spectra, including the fact that psychoanalysis takes a large-scale an...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:	Academic psychiatry 2014-04, Vol.38 (2), p.124-126
Main Authors:	Watson, Brendon O., Michels, Robert
Format:	Article
Language:	eng
Subjects:	Aggression Anatomy Animals Behavior Beliefs Brain Curricula Curriculum - standards Empathy Humans In Depth Article: Commentary Internship and Residency - standards Medical Education Medicine Medicine & Public Health Memory Mental Disorders Modeling (Psychology) Nervous system Neurosciences Neurosciences - education Neurosciences - methods Neurosciences - standards Patients Pharmacology Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Psychiatry Psychiatry - education Psychiatry - methods Psychiatry - standards Psychoanalysis Psychoanalytic Therapy - education Psychoanalytic Therapy - methods Psychoanalytic Therapy - standards Psychopathology Psychotherapy Resistance (Psychology) Social Behavior Social interaction
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Summary:	Educators of future psychiatrists tend to teach an array of approaches to the mind and brain, including among them the neurobiologic perspective and the psychoanalytic perspective. These may be considered at opposite ends of many spectra, including the fact that psychoanalysis takes a large-scale and treatment-oriented perspective and has helped countless patients over the years, while neuroscience has tended to be reductionistic, focused on understanding, and has helped very few people. A tension, therefore, exists for the educator in teaching neuroscience: is it wise to spend valuable time and energy teaching this interesting but, thus far, impractical field to future practitioners? Here, we argue that neuroscience is re-orienting itself towards more psychoanalytically relevant questions and is likely, in future years, to give new insights into the nature of basic drives and social relations. We additionally argue for balance on the part of providers in both acknowledging biologic underpinnings for clinical phenomena and yet continuing to take a stance oriented towards appropriate change. Given the burgeoning new focus within neuroscience on topics directly relating to the human internal experience and the novel challenges in both understanding those advances and appropriately using them, we encourage educators to continue to give future psychiatrists the educational foundation they need to follow neuroscientific discoveries into the future.
ISSN:	1042-9670 1545-7230