Objectives. - The aim of this article is to describe a new paradigm for an interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalysis and neuroscience, which respects the particularities of each discipline, while at the same time allowing for the conception of an intersection that can lay the foundations of a real meeting between both disciplines. We shall examine the epistemological grounds that can lead to this interdisciplinary dialogue, in order to avoid the possible pitfalls or methodological misunderstandings that could arise from such a meeting. In particular, the article will explain the possibilities of a paradigm that could avoid a monodisciplinary reductionism, with one of the two disciplines legitimating or subsuming the other.
Method. - At first, we shall try to deal with pre-existing difficulties, which can appear in the creation of a new interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalysis and biology. We can show that, from the beginning, the creation of the psychoanalysis as an autonomous discipline, with self-epistemological foundations, forced Freud to think about the future conditions of an interdisciplinary dialogue with biology. In a second step, we shall study how the latest significant scientific advances have induced an important reconfiguration of the relationship between psychoanalysis and biology, mainly through the emergence of neuroscience and through the improvements introduced by experimental research on the neuronal plasticity. Finally, after having described the molecular mechanisms that explain the plasticity of the nervous system, we shall observe that neurobiological findings can show points of intersection with Freudian theory.
Results. - The latest neurobiological research on neuronal plasticity, with the experimental discoveries about the inscription of experience in the nervous system through synaptic mechanisms, can be used as the foundation for a paradigm of an interdisciplinary dialogue with psychoanalysis. This paradigm could be built on a mutual observation that one's subjective experience leaves a lasting impression, either a synaptic trace from the neurobiological point of view, or a memory trace from the psychic point of view. Pierre Magistretti, neurobiologist, and Francois Ansermet, psychoanalyst, have proposed a new epistemological paradigm based upon the possibility of an intersection between both disciplines, separated from theoretical ideas concerning a meeting between psychoanalysis and neurosciences. The paradigm of the intersection allows for the possibility of an interdisciplinary dialogue, respecting the epistemological particularity and the heterogeneity of both disciplines.
Discussion. - The latest neurobiological research of Cristina Alberini and Yanin Dudai on synaptic mechanisms of consolidation - reconsolidation leads to remarkable findings: the molecular mechanisms that are the source of the stabilization of long-term memory could also be the source of a discontinuity between experience and its inscription as traces. The interdisciplinary dialogue, introduced through the discovery of a discontinuity in the re-association of the traces linked to Freud's theory on memory traces and their re associations, could clear the way for a debate on major ethical issues in psychoanalysis and neurosciences around plasticity. Taking into account the concept of plasticity leads us to emphasize the concept of the person, beyond genetic and social determinisms. From this perspective, psychoanalysis and neuroscience could meet by transcending linear determinisms, and by relinquishing any predictions when it comes to studying the person in its idiosyncrasy.
Conclusion. - Neurobiological research on neuronal plasticity leads to a new epistemological paradigm for an interdisciplinary dialogue between psychoanalysis and neurosciences, from the creation of an intersection involving the observation that experience records and leaves traces. This paradigm of intersection has the benefits of transcending any opposition between both disciplines, and at the same time of guaranteeing the specificities and autonomy of each. Findings about the synaptic mechanisms of plasticity allow for a reconfiguration of an interdisciplinary dialogue, while clearing the way for debates on major ethical issues. These issues are put into the current context of the "time of the living", which traverses every scientific discipline. Specifically, this paradigm allows us to imagine a meeting between psychoanalysis and neuroscience, through the same transcendence of linear and determinist points of view concerning causal relations, and through a new identification of the singularity of the person in her/his self-determination. (C) 2020 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.