ABSTRACT
The emerging study of consciousness is an interdisciplinary effort that poses significant challenges to traditional psychoanalytic theory of the mind. It is also, however, an area of study that promises to enhance our psychoanalytic and psychotherapeutic work. The centerpiece of this chapter is a lengthy case presentation. The clinical material is woven into a review of current neurobiological theory, in an effort to explain the relationship between dissociation, memory, and somatic symptoms. This relationship is explored within the context of a shift from the philosophy of mind-body duality to what can be called a post-Cartesian neurophilosophy. The current attack on the authenticity of memory has failed to consider extensive knowledge outside the limited scope of laboratory cognitive psychology. Arguments about notions like true versus false memory do not address more compelling questions, such as what is consciousness? how do we know what we know? This is a question that has been addressed in the psychoanalytic literature by only a few authors. 1 But this is a question we must pose if we are going to explore how information is held within or expressed through the body.
