ABSTRACT
Neuropsychoanalysis uses both the neurologist’s toolkit and the analyst’s. That is, neuropsychoanalysts will investigate cerebellum, cerebrum, and medulla oblongata. Lines of experiment suggest something special about the neurotransmitters that enable this wider, horizontal spread across a creative person’s brain. Kenneth Heilman suggests, however, that the effect does not come from dopamine itself. He points to a different neurotransmitter in the neurochemical cascade that transforms L-dopa to dopamine; namely, norepinephrine. A neuropsychoanalytic view of that special moment of literary creativity suggests that the mind expands in two directions. The neurologist compares what such a neurological examination shows with associated changes in the brain, either postmortem or by means of modern imaging technology. Applying neuropsychoanalysis to literature, then, literary creativity, means looking both subjectively and objectively, from inside and from outside.
