The PANY Bulletin

Psychoanalytic Association of New York
Volume 41, #3 Fall 2003

Scientific Meeting
The Psychoanalytic Theory of Drive in the Light of Recent Neuroscience Findings and Theories
by Howard Shevrin, Ph.D.
C. Philip Wilson Memorial Lecture
September 15, 2003

Author's Summary

The paper begins with an account of the relationship between clinical hypotheses concerning unconscious motivation and its underlying assumptions of motivational pressure and functional equivalence, mainly drawn from the thinking of Benjamin Rubenstein. Following this, an analysis of Freud's drive theory is presented.

The discussion then shifts to two neuroscience approaches to the problem of drive and motivation, specifically, the findings and theories developed by Jaak Panksepp on the SEEKING system and by Kent Berridge concerning unconscious "wanting."

A comparison then follows of Freud's drive theory with the two neuroscience models that demonstrates a close parallel in a number of important respects. In the light of this comparison, for example, the concept of motor pressure, one aspect of Freud's definition of a drive, is seen as paralleling Panksepp's concept of the "energizing" anticipatory aspect of the SEEKING system and the concept of unconscious "wanting" in Berridge's model. The notion of motor pressure, subjectively experienced as the urge to act, is related to the clinical concept of motivational pressure and to agency taken to refer to the subject as an actor rather than as an experiencing self.

Functional equivalence, the most general statement of primary process mentation, is found to parallel the phenomenon of autoshaping in which animals appear to act in a deluded way, in particular when the anticipatory aspect of the SEEKING system and "wanting" are intensely activated. Finally, how these ideas might be related to enactments and acting out in therapy will be explored. In the course of the presentation, some brain anatomy was introduced to illustrate the neuroscience findings and theories.