Neuroscience and psychoanalysis: approaches to consciousness and thinking

There exists an enormous amount of biological and scientific data in the field of neuroscience, which are daunting and laborious to those who are not directly engaged in these specialized areas. The intricacies and complexities of the role of the central nervous system (CNS) in psychiatric disorders and human behavior are, of course, acknowledged. In this article, observations and speculations of some prominent workers in the field of neuroscience are described with focus on their conclusions, rather than specific findings as they pertain to the mind-body relationship. The mind-brain/body issue has not been resolved insofar as clarifying the connections between CNS activity and thinking is concerned. Currently, it is useful to accept the concept of parallelism between CNS activity and thought. An argument will be made for the inclusion of the psychoanalytic method as an essential component of the scientific effort to elucidate consciousness and thinking.