ABSTRACT
New neural circuits build on old circuits, bundling together overlapping responses to similar categories of stimuli. There is some important new research on the question of how new ideas arise and how old ideas can be changed. The new unconscious, like the old, tends to be conservative, illustrating the sway of past learning over the present. These "stimulus-independent thoughts" seem to correspond to what psychoanalysts mean by free association, "free-floating attention", or reflection, the state of mind that facilitates new connections and new thoughts. These men worked largely without reference to psychoanalysis, convinced that S. Freud's view of the unconscious was inaccurate. Drew Westen, a clinical psychologist who has written extensively on links between brain research and psychoanalysis, in his recent book draws on neurobiological research. The new unconscious is grounded on empirical research, as well as a wide variety of empirical practices.
