ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses knowledge acquisition in relationship to two closely connected topics: the workings of mind–brain, and the clinical situation of psychoanalysis. The psychoanalyst reader will especially appreciate the attempt to connect specific clinical recommendations with the neurophysiological principles upon which they rest. Any psychoanalytic theory of learning or personality must be consonant with what is known about learning, memory, and knowledge formation from neuroscience. A slightly different way of summarizing some of the points made about learning is to relate learning in psychoanalysis to two elements: Sigmund Freud's free associative method, and neuro-scientific research visualizing cognition. The additional useful strategy psychoanalysts have discovered is to concentrate on the patient's nonverbal experience and communication. The psychoanalytic technique of free association greatly favors this activation of working memory. One must conclude that a major problem with the simultaneous reference to "representation" within neuroscience, psychology, and psychoanalysis is that these are three different sets of conceptions.
