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To cite this article: Jaak Panksepp (2002) The Self and Its Vicissitudes: Commentary by Jaak Panksepp,
Neuropsychoanalysis: An Interdisciplinary Journal for Psychoanalysis and the Neurosciences, 4:1, 41-57, DOI:
10.1080/15294145.2002.10773378
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15294145.2002.10773378
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``great intermediate net'' that intervenes between
the inputs and outputs of the brain, we have the
possibility of generating a lasting and substantive
understanding of mind-brain interrelations. The
only agreed-upon criterion we have in science for
deciding whether we have achieved that, resides in
our capacity to make predictions that can be
armed by consensually agreed upon observations. Those are the traditional rules of science,
according to which the emerging eld of neuropsychoanalysis also has to play out its aspirations
for a deeper scientic understanding of the human
mind. That is surely a worthy goal.
In our initial attempts to grapple with
complex psychological realities, all we can achieve
are the identication of some of the necessary
neural components that are essential for the
normal elaboration of certain psychological
processes, without any realistic possibility of
achieving any sucient, and comprehensive,
understanding for some time. This shortcoming
of science, often leads those positivists who have
very little tolerance for ambiguity to aspire to
knowledge with as little theory as possible. On the
other hand, the psychoanalytic tradition has had
more theory and fewer facts than most scientically minded investigators are willing to tolerate.
As I read the present target article and the various
commentaries, with their many interesting and
divergent perspectives, in my estimation, insucient attention was paid to the many compromises
and constraints that we need to respect in
searching for a lasting scientic understanding
of ``the self.''
As we aspire to elucidate certain subtle brain
processes, and the nature of ``the self'' is certainly
among them, most of our ideas are bound to be
woefully insucient. As many commentators
noted, often we will be talking past each other
because we are talking of dierent ``things'' and
sometime we will be looking at the same process
from very dierent perspectives. If we add to this
the natural political tendency of well-entrenched
intellectual traditions to protect their turf, we
have a ready recipe for abundant confusions. The
current round of discussions has not been
immune to that, but many useful ideas have been
shared that may help us consider some novel
approaches and integrative ideas that have not
been well developed in the past.
I make these prefatory remarks from the
following ontological position: Mind, and hence
the nature of the self, is ``just'' an evolved
emergent of brain-bodily dynamics, resolved into
innite detail by individual developmental experiences in the real world. I think we can presently
get a neuroscientic handle on the evolved aspects
Jaak Panksepp
(e.g., the core dimensions of ``the self''), while the
psycho-developmental aspects (or as Mildrod
puts it, ``the self representations'') are not yet as
amenable to an eective neuroscientic analysis.
This is simply because the mind functions during
development cannot be easily measured in animal
models from which the denitive neuroscientic
analysis must emerge. Only the core processes
that are evident in natural animal behaviors can
guide basic taxonomizing.
Of course, there are still many neuroscientists who are so neo-dualistic (i.e., resistant to all
mental concepts in brain science) that they believe
that all approaches to such topics are unworkable. It is regrettable that so many brain
investigators who could make major empirical
contributions to such issues have bad cases of
ontological immaturityfor instance, the many
behavioral neuroscientists who exhibit strong
symptoms of intellectual indigestion whenever
there is any kind of ``mind talk,'' especially in
reference to other animals. My personal bias is
that certain kinds of mind-talk helps us conceptualize key neuroscientic questions, namely
all those evolutionary givens of the brain/mind
that can never be dened adequately until a
substantial amount of neurobiological research
has been done (for instance, the basic attentional,
emotional and motivational systems of the brain).
I believe the perennial specter of dualism,
that haunts our discussion of mind issues, is a
spook that emerged from the evolution of our
linguistic abilities. It is also a mainstay of
mysterian opinion-leaders of intrinsically dubious
philosophical traditions such as all forms of
solipsism and deconstructive relativism. Our
language based cognitive abilities create great
mischief, especially in psychology, where it is
quite easy to create ``linguistic kinds'' and to then
coax others to believe that they are either natural
kinds or that no such entities actually exist in the
mind. For instance the popular concepts of
positive and negative aect, may be little more
than class-identiers for the many distinct ways
we can feel good and bad. Namely those concepts
help organize a large variety of natural aective
kinds that are actually constructed in brains
(perhaps with various generalized neurochemistries such as dopamine and opioids), and neuroscientists might be well advised to seek the neural
basis of those types of natural kinds than general
semantic ones such as global positive and negative
aects.
Also, in our discussions we should remember
that the evolution of language circuits was
probably enmeshed substantially with socialdesirability issues and the selective advantages
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scientically sound approach to such issues may
look like.
Jaak Panksepp
monitoring of aective states (Panksepp, 1999).
Thus, the scientic search for ``the self'' has
to be formulated as a systematically progressive
enterprise, starting with issues that can be
empiricized, and gradually aspiring to deal with
issues of greater complexity. Of course, this is a
common problem when we deal with complex
systemswhether they be genetic or psychic. We
simply do not have good empirical tools to make
a really solid start, thus we must largely indulge in
a discussion of conceptual issues that have the
potential to become empirical ones.
A Neuroscience View of this Inter-group
Tournament
Since our discussions here amounts to an eort to
build ``a collective learning machine'' to use
Howard Bloom's (2000) terminology, I will
proceed to employ one of his other didactic
devices for such group eorts. He suggests there
are a quintet of perspectives that commonly
appear when a contentious new issue emerges
on the intellectual landscape. There are 1)
conformity enforcers, 2) diversity generators, 3)
inner-judges, 4) resource shifters and 5) intergroup tournaments. I hope they are suciently
self-explanatory, but if not, do seek further
clarication from Bloom's breathtaking sketch
of life from its primordial origins through recent
human history (Global Brain). I also believe that
in order to make good sense of this incredibly
important topicthe nature of the self and
selveswe would all be wise to start with
evolutionary fundamentals that may be shared
by all mammals, and to ever so gradually work up
to the massive complexities of our own species. I
trust, that no one would be so crass, in this year
after preliminary completion of the human
genome project and the primal emotional trauma
of 9/11, to suggest that we share so little with the
other animals that such issues are of no relevance
for the neuro-psychoanalytic enterprise.
Certainly Freud would have resonated well
with the need for a solid organic foundation for
most of the many concepts that he enticed us to
consider. Thus, I nd it a great pity that the
present psychoanalytically oriented commentators were not more willing to entertain neuralhypotheses of their own construction, but this is
understandable. To some extent the sad state of
education in psychology continues, where a
confrontation with the brain (the organ of the
mind?) is assiduously avoided by practitioners of
the mind. This is one of the rst things that must
change in psychoanalysis for productive neuro-
Britton's Commentary
Britton elaborates on a variety of psychoanalytic
nuances that presently have no clear relations to
neuroscientic ideas, and proceeds to agree with
Milrod that it may be premature to neurologize
most psychoanalytic concepts. As I will expand
on in my discussion of some of the more
contentious commentators, I believe there are
some approaches that may be more productive
than is commonly believed. For instance, the
evolved ``state controls'' of the brain (or the basic
``facts of life'' as Britton puts it, and the primal or
core ``self'' may be one of them) are quite open to
inquiry. Thus, a critical issue, as I will expand on
later, is the extent to which aspects of ``the self''
should be conceptualized as ``state control systems'' as opposed to the many cognitive ``channel
functions'' of the brain. I very much agree with
Britton's sentiment that a diversity of ideas is
essential for future progress, and at the very least,
``we should be getting ready'' for the task of ``reexamining the status of our discoveries and
theories.''
Goldberg's Commentary
In contrast to Britton's gentle acceptance of the
fact that future growth depends on the new seeds
we are willing to plant, Goldberg has chosen his
role as ``conformity enforcer''one who hopes to
pull the psychoanalytic tribe together in an evertightening circle that is not very sympathetic to
consilience with the brain sciences. Goldberg
seems to suggest that neuroscience and psychoanalysis are ``separate worlds'' which at an
ontological level must surely be nonsense. They
simply deal with the same world at very dierent
levels of analysis, and it seems pointless to
``insist'' that psychoanalysis should continue to
be a hermeneutic discipline that cannot really
connect up well neuroscience. How Milrod's
openness ``serves to rigidify a eld that should
remain vital and open'' is one of the minor
mysteries of his commentary. Milrod's essay
struck me as an example of an appropriately
cautious open-door policya statement that
encouraged connections without really attempting
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(perhaps wisely) to lay out what those connections might look like.
After all, there really are no experts in this
eld yet, only provisional ideas on how to
proceed. For instance, even though Damasio
and I generally agree on the aective/motivational foundations of consciousness and self, we
have taken divergent approaches to how aect is
actually created in the brain. Damasio, with his
somatic marker hypothesis, believes the somatosensory monitoring is essential for the creation of
conscious feelings. I, with my conception of
various emotional ``state control'' systems concentrated in subcortical regions of the brain, favor
the view that the global experience of aect is a
distinct from of consciousness mediated directly
by those subcortical action systems that generate
the instinctual avor of emotional behaviors.
With such variability in working hypotheses, it
might be foolish for any psychoanalyst who has
not kept up with the cornucopia of details from
basic brain research and developmental psychology and the functional neurosciences to suggest
how mind-brain issues might be optimally
``docked.''
Goldberg implies that the connections are
best made to certain modern views such as nonlinear dynamics. It is timely and attractive to pay
lip-service to such views, but we should be under
no illusion that the empiricism needed to cash out
such new metaphors presently exists, or that the
available strategies are all that compelling (for a
critique, see Panksepp, 2000). Even the acquisition of adequate data sets to apply those
mathematical techniques is a challenge that few
have come close to meeting (e.g., Freeman, 2000).
We still need eective simplifying strategies to
make empirical progress. At the present time, it is
as likely that the docking will be most eective
with old classical views as with the more modern
integrative ideas that are really no better linked to
(or capable of being linked to) brain issues.
However, those that do link up with dynamic
view will eventually be amply rewarded.
Just to give a avor of one dynamic view that
may link up, let me share a striking image shared
with our electronic reading group recently by the
one person, Walter Freeman, who has been able
to implement psychologically relevant non-linear
dynamic approaches to brain activity: ``Neural
networks are particulate, discrete, and reductionist;
they do algebra, elegantly to be sure, but brainlessly. The key to understanding my view of brains
is to conceive an act of perception as based in a
cortical phase transition, in which a cloud of action
potentials from 10 to 100 million neurons condenses
like a vapor into a drop of liquid in the cortical
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mantle. The condensation disc forms in 35
milliseconds, lasts 80100 milliseconds, and covers
a circular area 1030 millimeters in diameter in
rabbits, probably 2 to 3 times larger in humans.
They form at rates of 2 to 7 times per second. They
are exceedingly large, but not immense (unmeasurable). They oer the doorway to cognition and
consciousness.''
I might only disagree with the last word of
the rst sentence, and suggest ``mindlessly''
instead, and I suspect that they also do much
more than ``algebra'' even at the single cell level,
with life-supporting neurotrophins, etc adding
tonic organic inuences that we can not envision
clearly yet. Mind is clearly the activity of massive
ensembles of neurons, and the ``neuron doctrine''
that dominated neuroscience throughout the 20th
century, now needs to be replaced by a ``network
doctrine'' that recognizes that the fabric of mind
cannot be understood simply by studying the
individual neuronal stitches. Freeman has measured the shadows of the ripples in the fabric better
than anyone else, and now we need to gure out
how one might proceed empirically forward into
that vast expanse of our ongoing ignorance that
Freeman's ``doorway'' gives us access to. This is
one way mind and brain will eventually be docked
(Panksepp, 2000b), and in my estimation the
other major way is through the search for
neurochemical codes for basic mind/brain processes (Panksepp, 1998a).
Although I do not favor the way Descartes
ontologically screwed up a reasonable search for
mind-brain docking during the past four centuries
(yielding life-denying monstrosities like radicalbehaviorism and an emotionless informationprocessing cognitivism), I think his third rule of
science (e.g., start with simplications that are
empirically workable and aspire to add additional
complexities into the analysis as opportunities
arise) is something we desperately need to
consider as we aspire to dock some depth
psychological issues of interest to psychoanalysts
with the environmentally modulated brain substrates from which they arise. We can be certain
that every simplication, every metaphor, that we
can presently generate can only be a shadow of
reality. However, in the caldron of reality-testing
(i.e., seeing the world through scientic methods
as opposed to just our theoretical belief systems)
we will all have to be willing to mold our
concepts to t as much of the relevant evidence
as is available out there. Thus, it would have
been good if more commentators had specied
more clearly what the relevant evidence might
look like at the present time, whether clinical or
experimental.
Jaak Panksepp
Goldberg suggest that most of the neuroscience evidence is not relevant to the cardinal
concerns of psychoanalysts. He may be right, but
led us not be too hasty to accept politicized
assumptions that may only impede progress. At
the threshold of molecular biology in the 1940s,
the experts marginalized Oswald Avery's empirically-based insight that DNA was the medium of
inheritance. The conformity enforcers of that age
saw his approach to be a ``futile eort'' to
penetrate mysteries whose true nature lay elsewhere. That was simply a shortsightedness that
emerged from human arrogance rather than an
intellectual openness and an honest confrontation
with the mysteries. The animal models in molecular biology have been absolutely essential for us
to understand our genetic nature. The human
genome project has now enriched all avenues of
thought about human nature enormously, revealing vast new layers of mystery to be penetrated
(e.g., Commoner, 2002). Animal models will be
just as important if we want to create a lasting
mind-brain science. Just as our understanding of
bacterial DNA did not trivialize our understanding of human inheritance, so our understanding
of natural brain functions of animals will not
trivialize depth psychological concepts that we
need to understand the mental apparatus of
humans. Modern behavioral brain research can
help psychoanalytic thought to grow and change
as our knowledge base expands. Psychoanalytic
research could inform neuroscience how the
neuro-mental apparatus is arranged.
In my estimation, what we must presently
aspire to is to identify the core principles of
evolved mental organization and to establish
supervenience relationships among seemingly different levels of analysis. If evolutionary theory is
correct, then we most certainly do have a solid
foundation of mind that we share with closely
related creatures of the world. Freud recognized
this when he said (1920/1959, p. 50) ``The present
development of human beings requires, as it seems
to me, no dierent explanation from that of
animals'' and followed it (pp. 7273) with the
suggestion that ``The deciencies in our description
would probably vanish if we were already in a
position to replace the psychological terms by
physiological or chemical ones.'' Surely ``replace''
is rather extreme by modern standards (``supplement'' might have been more judicious), but a
study of such supervenience relations between
brain systems and psychological issues will
certainly advance our understanding of mental
processes enormously. But rst we have to
identify not only what is fundamental to mind
and what are the ingrained functions of the brain.
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brain-body docking is so critically dependent.
I believe she is correct in giving young
infants a much more resolved mental life than
was evident in Milrod's essay (also see Panksepp,
2001). Surely, infants begin to exhibit aective
indications of a ``theory of mind'' long before
they can exhibit propositional indications of such
capacities through their utterances. For instance,
Stern (1985) and Trevarthen (1984) have given us
powerful conceptions of how ready infants are
ready to share their feelings with receptive others.
However, in her enthusiasm to bring the bodysenses back into consciousness studies, I continue
to be perplexed by her desire to marginalize the
brain. I think she is creating unneeded problems
in de-emphasizing (perhaps even demonizing) the
``neuroscience of the brain'' in preference to a
``neuroscience of bodies.'' Although both are
necessary for a complete picture, her extreme
focus on the real body versus the virtual body
schema in the brain seems to neglect the fact that
the neurodynamics of the evolved operating
systems of the brain seem to be the common
denominator for the aective expressions of the
``real'' body (Panksepp, 1998a,b). Quadriplegics
still have a rich emotional life even though the
vast majority of the inputs from the body have
been castrated. Of course, that kind of damage
does not eliminate feedback from the face, and
more importantly feedback from the viscera.
However, despite such qualications, the brain
loop remains essential for the conscious life of
deeply experienced bodily feelings around which
more recent perceptual developments emerged in
the evolution of exteroceptive consciousness.
Thus, our perceptual apparatus is prepared to
code for environmental events that would hurt
the body (presumably coded by the virtual
body(s) of the brain), and the most useful new
knowledge will surely come from our willingness
to cultivate brain views that do not neglect any of
the body representations that actually exist in the
matrix of individual being.
Thus, Sheets-Johnstone provides that essential ``inner-judge'' inuence to keep us on the
right track. Perhaps in this role she goes a tad too
far in her reication of the somatic body, and
should contemplate the virtual reality spaces that
the consciousness mechanisms of the brain create
for aectively motivated body representations
behaving in highly abstracted neurosymbolic
representations of the world. The fact that the
body was so marginalized in 20th century
psychology and philosophy is a travesty that has
put both elds into a protracted remedial mode,
that is progressing more slowly than it should
because of the many ``talking head'' comformity-
Jaak Panksepp
enforcers out there, especially those that see
consciousness only in linguistic, sensory and
information-processing terms. That anyone can
still pretend that consciousness is linked critically
to our language processing capacities is one of the
great mysteries of consciousness studies (e.g.,
MacPhail, 2000; Rolls, 1999). That type of
conclusion is fundamentally anti-evolutionary
and raises an enormous barrier to neuroscientic
progress on the topic. The capacity for agency is
critical to the core selfneither linguistic nor
sensory processes are enough to create consciousness, and the assumption that they can leads to an
ungrounded neo-dualism. Surely the foundations
of consciousness have to be mapped out in solid
motor coordinates, especially in those that can
generate instinctual action tendencies, at least that
is my reading of the evidence (Panksepp, 1998a,b).
This instinctual motor system is not simply
an ``output'' device that is irrelevant for consciousness. It has natural dynamics of its own
which are probably the neurodynamic signatures
of the basic emotions, and when our minds
become ensnared in these dynamics, globally
projected through the brain and neurosymbolic
systems of bodily self-representation, then we
experience dierent aective states. At least that
is the way I currently view the matter. Like
Goldberg, I would like to believe that this type of
global brain interaction will eventually be best
understood in terms of chaotic attractor patterns
set up by emotional states ensnaring somatic
sensory-motor elds (leading to the cathexis of
perceptions), but no one has been clever enough,
yet, to convert the dross of such attractive verbal
insights into the gold of empirical ndings.
However, for progress to occur, many investigators need to have the proper guiding images and
metaphors in mind. Thanks to visionaries like
Sheets-Johnstone, with her inimitably contentious
style, we may eventually get the body returned
correctly into the overall equation. In my estimation, that should largely be a neurosymbolic
(virtual) body that is not only in close touch with
somatic and visceral feedbacks from the peripheral body but also the various basic emotional
operating systems that can inundate the ancient
action apparatus upon which, I believe, a primal
sense of self must be premised. I think this motor
foundation is still evident within the very best
dance and music that we as a species can create.
Feinberg's Commentary
One of the most powerful linkages between brain
functions and depth psychological theories will
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integrity that is very much independent of the
neocortical somatic motor apparatus which seems
to be the focus of Feinberg's analysis. These are
the deep brain areas that have primacy during
early infancy, when as Milrod and SheetsJohnstone describe, the basic psychological abilities are beginning to ex their ``muscles''their
ability to spontaneously generate those spontaneous ``intentions in action'' that later captivate
the emerging sensory-perceptual apparatus of
higher cerebral spaces.
Like Sheets-Johnstone, and many others
(e.g., Sterns, 1985; Thelen, Schoner, Scheier and
Smith, 2001), I believe the infant is capable of
fairly complex mental operations soon after birth
although they cannot communicate their competence in language. For them, gesture is everything.
If so, might we not be able to conceptualize the
unity of the self as arising from the intrinsic
unities of the instinctual action (Agency?) apparatus that serve as basic survival kits for each and
every organism? The grounding of the core self
may reside in a virtual neurosymbolic representation of key bodily processes that converge within
midbrain areas such as the PAG and nearby
reticular zones. Although I take this remark out
of context, I fully agree with Feinberg's ``view
that the self emerges hierarchically at the ``summit'' of the nervous system is mistaken.''
Unfortunately, there is little intellectual or
research activity that aspires to clarify this
ancestral ground of being for the future mental
life of developing infants (Colin Trevarthen's
work is an noteworthy exception). Perhaps we
are being attracted by the glitter of more recent
developments in the same manner as tourists to
The Big Apple are attracted to the lights of Times
Square? Perhaps we can only see the real Ground
Zero of the soul when the massive corticoconstructed self (the autobiographical self, in
Damasio's terms) is taken away from the scene?
We should not forget that the smallest amount of
brain damage that can quite simply devastate all
of those constructions are rather small infractions
localized to centromedial regions of the midbrain.
The primal nest of the self, which continues
to provide the unity for later developments, may
be concentrated in this centroencephalon, the very
core of the brainstem. We can understand why
Milrod is attracted to such neuroscientic suggestions. We can also understand his mixed feelings
with such ideas, for there is no easy way for
psychoanalysts to study (to come to terms) with
such ancient brain functions except through
neuroscientic approaches. But such ideas remain
a major challenge for neuroscientists also. If such
ancient mind functions do exist in the brains of
Jaak Panksepp
infants, we must also take the conscious abilities
of the other animals very seriously, and not
dismiss them as is so common among behavioral
neuroscientists. In short, there are levels of
control within the neuroaxis that hardly anyone
has conceptualized with any sense of empirically
based conviction.
Beside the case histories shared by Feinberg,
there are other incredible neuropsychological
observations of brain-impaired individuals (for
some others, see Gallese and Umilta's contribution). Such psychological changes demand a
reformulation of the foundations of mind in
terms that may be closer to some globalexistential psychoanalytic concepts than detailed
information-processing ones that are popular in
the cognitive/computational neurosciences. Let us
again briey consider the deep psychological
repressions that seem to exist when only the left
hemisphere is operating (i.e., in individuals with
right parietal neglect). For a while after their
brain damage, such individuals operate strictly in
the glare of what I would call a ``cognitive
consciousness'' disconnected from the deeper
egocentric aective processes of their brains.
They simply deny the existence of the dramatic
changes that have beset their lives. They make jest
of serious emotional dilemmas of their lives.
Although aspects of the syndrome are explained
well by unilateral inattention to aspects of the
world, the neglect seems to also arise from deeper
mental currents. As described by Kaplan-Solms
and Solms (2000), in the midst of psychoanalytic
sessions, these individuals shift, for short periods
of time, into a deeper existential states where they
exhibit ``proper'' aective responses to the severity of their impairment. These individuals may be
actively suppressing a sustained cognitive perception of their plight. This deeper core of ``aective
consciousness'' seems to be repressed by the
narrow-minded linguistic capacities in which the
left-hemisphere excels. I believe, those emotional/
aective neural processes, with which the right
hemisphere is in better touch, are the ones we
must understand if we are to fathom the
foundations of the primal self.
In sum, what Feinberg's analysis provides
for us is a wonderful example of some of the best
that neuroscientists can oer psychoanalysis, new
ways of looking at thingsa service that ``diversity generators'' always provide for our growing
storehouse of ideas. This was done to an even
greater extent in the next, and perhaps most
spellbinding, commentary, which also did not
aspire to go beyond the many spectacular tools of
consciousness that exist in higher regions of the
mind. Both of these neuroscience views provide
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system that are experienced as aects and which
directly control the living presence of the instinctual-emotional action (Agency) apparatus of the
brain. The core principles for such primal self
functions were laid down in much deeper recesses
of the brain than are open to routine neuroscience
investigation in humans (Panksepp, 1998b).
Instead of ``information processing'' these
more ancient endogenous functions of the mind
become manifest through massive ensembles of
neuronal networks that were evolutionarily designed to operate in certain ways (they are best
reected in the natural animal behaviors and the
corresponding natural non-perceptual mental
currents in humans). This is were the essential
need for theoretically driven animal models
becomes so essential for future progress, but
animal brain researchers are remarkably resistant
to heading in such conceptual directions, partially
because practically no resources have been shifted
in the temples of scientic support for the pursuit
of such questions. This, I believe, is a continuing
tragedy of 20th century behaviorism and its
modern osprings, behavioral neuroscience and
an emotionless information-processing cognitivism,
neither of which has much tolerance for talk about
human or animal consciousness or the aective
qualities such ancient processes help generate.
Resource Shifting Into a Deeper Conception of
``The Self''
At this juncture, I would shift gears, and to
present an alternative, albeit complementary
view, that will attempt to expand on perspectives
that may have initially enticed Milrod to be
attracted to the views of the self that have been
enunciated by Damasio (1999) and myself
(1998a,b, 1999, 2000a,b,c). I personally believe
that this line of work has the greatest ability to
clarify what Milrod calls ``the self'' but this is such
a deep and hidden brain process, that conformityenforcers, which exist in abundance in any
society, can easily challenge all views by highlighting the vast intricacies of the mature individuals that most psychoanalysts see in practice.
This extended self is so vast and complex that one
can easily remain skeptical of all simplifying
suggestions for a long time to come. But as
Descartes said in his third rule of science, simplify
we must in order to make any scientic progress
at all.
I will not attempt to detail the similarities
and dierences between my own views and those
of Damasio, but to merely emphasize that at this
point the similarities outweigh the dierences.
Jaak Panksepp
For instance, we both situate the primal selfprocesses in centromedial areas of the brainstem,
with perhaps some dierences as to which precise
structures may be the most important ones to
delve into empirically. In my estimation, our main
three dierences, perhaps arising from the dierent species we have focused on, are as follows:
First, Damasio's view of the core self is more
of a sensory/perceptual centric view while mine is
more of a motor/action centric view. Of course,
both are important and this dierence is largely, I
believe, a matter of emphasis as to how issues can
be best approached at an empirical level.
Second, Damasio discusses emotions more
globally than I do. My view is based on the
empirically based postulation of a variety of basic
emotional operating systems that can dierentiate
the various core states of the self into a variety of
distinct natural types. Damasio sees the essence of
emotionality to be in a somatic-readout of
peripheral bodily processes into the somatosensory areas of the cortex.
Third, in line with his cortico-centric view of
emotional processing (Damasio, 1994) and my
fundamentally subcortical view of emotional
processing (Panksepp, 1982), we tend to emphasize dierent regions of the brain as being the
epicenters for the generation of aective experiences. Damasio is prone to situate aective
experience in somatosensory representations
(i.e., somatic markers) of the neocortex. I am
prone to situate epicenters for aective experience
within the limbic circuits for specic emotions
that converge dramatically in the midbrain PAG
and other periventricular convergence zones.
Although these areas of brain are generally
deemed to be much too primitive to have any
type of awareness, it is noteworthy that with the
recent brain imaging work from the Damasios'
lab (Damasio et al., 2000), a convergence of views
may be emerging concerning the essential (albeit
perhaps not sucient) nature of the subcortical
systems that have been identied through animal
brain research.
So, why would I assert that dierent principles of neural organization need to be considered
when we consider the types of ``cognitive consciousness'' that Gallese and Umilta and Feinberg
focus on to describe ``the self representation'', and
``the feeling of what happens'' or ``aective
consciousness'' that Damasio and I would argue
is the foundation of ``the core self/SELF.'' I note
that I have traditionally used capitalizations for
the concept (which, for heuristic purposes can be
translated as Simple Ego-type Life Form) to
highlight the fact that I am talking about
necessary neural components without asserting
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54
existence. That will not happen unless our
institutions are willing to shift abundant resources
in ways that the many of the radical-positivists
who are currently beneting from governmental
largesse will strenuously resist.
Jaak Panksepp
will proceed most eectively if its studies are
devoted to clarifying the natural kinds (closely
related to intrinsic ``knowledge by acquaintance''
processes) as much as is possible, because the
conceptual kinds (more aligned with extrinsic
``knowledge by description'' processes) can have
as much variety as individual learning, unique
emotional and cognitive wishes, and cultural
biases permit.
The more one focuses on the full circuscarnival of human fancy and cultural biases, the
less lasting species-general knowledge one is likely
to obtain. Again, this sentiment is shared only to
emphasize that research on the foundational
principles is more likely to yield consistent and
replicable ndings than research on the acquired
manifestations of mind. Just as an example,
scientic psychology is actually quite a weak
discipline from the natural science perspective,
largely because it has so massively marginalized
even talk about the ``natural kinds'' that surely
exist in the brain/mind. It has invested more in
studying the diversity of individual experiences,
which is better left as the province for the
humanities. It is likely that those natural aspects
of brain functions, rather than the massive layers
of individual learning, provide the deep coherence
to each and every individual.
Carestri also asks ``how does the individual
know that he is himself; how is this identity
preserved in time through the changes that take
place''? These are stupendously important questions, and I would suggest they depend heavily on
the foundation of agency and bodily/aective
selfhood that is established at a very deep level of
the neuroaxis. Equally important questions related to this are: Where do our thoughts arise
from? How does a sensation become a feeling?
What does it mean to have emotional experiences? Hopefully the above has helped somewhat
to clarify how we might proceed on these
important questions.
Carestri also suggests that our ideas ``should
be inserted in a non-linear developmental
scheme'' and I expect that everyone that has been
paying attention will agree. Indeed, we believe
that the basic emotional systems can serve as
``attractors'' for dierent developmental landscapes (Panksepp, 1998a, 2000b), but no one
has really demonstrated (except perhaps for
Walter Freeman, 2000a,b, and also vide supra)
how we might cash this out experimentally. At
present, I continue to ponder how the critical
perspective of the type oered by Canestri might
help us make substantive empirical progress,
recognizing how easily mere words can help
polarize attitudes and encourage a tribalism that
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56
focus on higher mental processes will only yield
conceptual kinds that certainly exist in great
abundance but which will not give us insight into
our deeper nature.
There are obviously an enormous number of
ways to channel information about the world into
the vast memorial/cognitive spaces of our mental
imagery/perceptual apparatus, and it will be most
interesting to speculate about what type of
``aect-logic'' types of processes exist in those
higher, neocortical regions of the mind. Many of
the processes in which psychoanalysts are most
interested, are elaborated in those higher neuromental spaces. A while ago I was of the mind that
it would be unlikely that we would ever be able to
tackle those issues at a deep neuroscience level
before we claried the ancestral neural platforms
upon which the more recent brain systems are
built. Now, work such as that of Gallese and
Umilta suggest my bias was wrong. Perhaps the
most important ndings for psychology should be
coming from the discipline of Evolutionary
Psychology.
It will be very interesting when such mindscientists begin to study the evolutionary engraving of cognitive functions that actually exist in
heteromodal regions of the human neocortex, as
opposed to assuming ``modularities'' that many
simply assume must exist up there (for critique,
see Panksepp and Panksepp, 2000). How neuropsychoanalysts will aspire to scientically demonstrate the functions of the mind promises to be an
equally interesting chapter of intellectual history.
If we can work from the bottom up, with an
understanding of the core self and the basic
emotions that inform the emergence of autobiographical selves, we may grow toward a fruitful
maturity like well-reared infants that utilize their
evolutionarily provided skills to navigate the ever
increasing complexities of their worlds.
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Jaak Panksepp
Chicago Institute for Neurosurgery and
Neuroresearch
Northwestern University Research Park
1801 Maple Ave
Evanston, IL 60201
Correspondence to author at:
April 1June 2, 2002 (and after Sept. 3, 2002)
Dept. of Psychology
Bowling Green State Univ.
Bowling Green, OH 43403
jpankse@bgnet.bgsu.edu
June 3, 2002September 3, 2002
Dept. of Psychology
University of Portsmouth (UK)
Exact address will be provided to Ed Nersessian
Introduction
In ``The Concept of the Self and the Self
Representation,'' Dr. David Milrod attempts to
clarify the psychoanalytic nature of two seemingly
obvious but dicult concepts, specically with a
view to nding links between psychoanalysis
perhaps particularly psychoanalytic theoryand
present-day neuroscience. His eorts result in a
probing and provocative paper. What I would
like to oer in this commentary is less a critical
review of what is there in the paper than a critical
review of what is not there in the paper and what
might protably be there to the benet of both
psychoanalysis and present-day neuroscience.
In The Ego and the Id, Freud wrote, ``The
ego is rst and foremost a bodily ego'' (Freud,
1955, p. 26). He immediately claried this
statement, pointing out that the ego ``is not
merely a surface entity, but is itself the projection