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Neuropsychoanalysis Course

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Neuropsychoanalysis Course

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Neuropsychoanalysis Course

Name: Neuropsychoanalysis Course
Price: 2994 PHP
Rating: 5 (1 reviews)

Neuropsychoanalysis bridges the empirical rigor of modern neuroscience with the depth of psychoanalytic clinical theory. This course gives mental health professionals and advanced students a comprehensive, evidence-based framework for understanding the brain behind the couch. You will leave equipped to think, formulate, and practice at the intersection of two powerful disciplines.

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What you will learn:

You will build a working knowledge of neuroanatomy, primary emotional systems, and consciousness research as they apply directly to psychoanalytic concepts. The course covers how defense mechanisms, transference, and the unconscious map onto measurable brain processes. You will study attachment neurobiology, the default mode network, and the neuroscience of therapeutic change. Clinical chapters address depression, anxiety, trauma, psychosis, and personality disorders through an integrated dual-framework lens. You will also explore research methods, psychopharmacology, developmental neuroscience, and cultural factors that shape both brain function and analytic practice.

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Course content

8 Chapters • 37 LessonsDuration between 4 and 360 hours (you decide)

Chapter 1See details

Foundations of Neuropsychoanalysis

Lesson 1 • Origins and Historical Development
Traces neuropsychoanalysis from Freud's Project for a Scientific Psychology to modern integration efforts. Provides the historical arc essential for understanding current debates.
Lesson 2 • Methodological Bridges Between Fields
Introduces methods used to connect brain data with psychoanalytic constructs. Prepares students to evaluate research designs encountered throughout the course.
Lesson 3 • Key Figures and Institutions
Profiles the researchers and organizations that shaped neuropsychoanalysis. Situates the field within broader academic and clinical communities.
Lesson 4 • Core Assumptions of Each Discipline
Contrasts the epistemological commitments of neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Clarifies where genuine overlap exists versus where tensions remain.

Chapter 2See details

Neuroanatomy for Psychoanalytic Clinicians

Lesson 1 • Neurotransmitter Systems and Psychodynamics
Maps dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, and opioid systems onto motivational and affective constructs. Provides a neurochemical lens for drive theory.
Lesson 2 • Brain Organization and Hierarchy
Presents the triune brain model and cortical-subcortical hierarchy. Anchors later discussions of drives, affect, and higher cognition in structural terms.
Lesson 3 • Default Mode Network and Self-Referential Processing
Introduces the default mode network as a neural basis for self-reflection and mind-wandering. Relates it to psychoanalytic notions of the self and fantasy.
Lesson 4 • Prefrontal Cortex and Executive Function
Covers prefrontal roles in inhibition, planning, and reality testing. Links these functions to psychoanalytic ego operations and secondary-process thinking.
Lesson 5 • Limbic Structures and Emotional Processing
Examines the amygdala, hippocampus, and related structures as substrates of emotion and memory. Connects these to psychoanalytic concepts of affect and trauma.

Chapter 3See details

Drives, Affects, and Primary Emotions

Lesson 1 • Pleasure, Unpleasure, and Homeostasis
Analyzes the neurobiological basis of the pleasure principle and its limits. Connects allostasis and predictive coding to psychoanalytic economic theory.
Lesson 2 • Panksepp's Seven Primary Emotional Systems
Presents SEEKING, RAGE, FEAR, LUST, CARE, PANIC/GRIEF, and PLAY as subcortical affect systems. Establishes these as the neurobiological foundation of psychoanalytic affect theory.
Lesson 3 • Freudian Drive Theory Revisited
Reviews Freud's libido and death drive concepts through a neurobiological lens. Identifies which aspects are supported, revised, or refuted by current neuroscience.
Lesson 4 • Affect Regulation and Psychic Structure
Examines how cortical systems modulate subcortical affect and how failures produce symptoms. Bridges neurobiological regulation to ego and superego functions.

Chapter 4See details

Consciousness, the Unconscious, and Memory

Lesson 1 • Implicit and Explicit Memory Systems
Distinguishes procedural, semantic, episodic, and priming memory systems. Connects implicit memory to the dynamic unconscious and transference phenomena.
Lesson 2 • Neuroscience of Consciousness
Covers global workspace theory, integrated information theory, and brainstem consciousness models. Provides the scientific framework for evaluating psychoanalytic claims about awareness.
Lesson 3 • Dreams and the Sleeping Brain
Analyzes REM sleep neuroscience alongside Freud's dream theory. Evaluates which dream functions are supported by contemporary sleep research.
Lesson 4 • Trauma, Memory Reconsolidation, and Therapy
Explores how traumatic memories are encoded, retrieved, and modified. Links reconsolidation windows to psychoanalytic working-through and therapeutic change.
Lesson 5 • Repression and Neural Inhibition
Examines motivated forgetting research and prefrontal inhibitory control. Provides an empirical basis for the psychoanalytic concept of repression.

Chapter 5See details

Attachment, Intersubjectivity, and the Social Brain

Lesson 1 • Mirror Neurons and Intersubjectivity
Examines mirror neuron research and its contested role in empathy and imitation. Connects these findings to relational and intersubjective psychoanalytic theories.
Lesson 2 • Attachment Theory and Neurobiology
Reviews Bowlby's attachment system through the lens of opioid, oxytocin, and stress-response research. Grounds attachment styles in measurable neurobiological patterns.
Lesson 3 • Mentalizing and Theory of Mind
Covers the neural basis of mentalizing and its role in reflective functioning. Links Fonagy's mentalization-based treatment to prefrontal and temporoparietal networks.
Lesson 4 • Right-Brain Communication in the Dyad
Presents Schore's right-brain-to-right-brain model of therapeutic communication. Applies nonverbal, affective signaling to the analytic relationship.

Chapter 6See details

Defense Mechanisms and Neural Correlates

Lesson 1 • Repression, Suppression, and Inhibition
Distinguishes conscious suppression from unconscious repression using neuroimaging data. Connects prefrontal-hippocampal dynamics to clinical observations of forgetting.
Lesson 2 • Defenses in Clinical Formulation
Applies neurobiological defense knowledge to case conceptualization and treatment planning. Integrates brain-based understanding with psychodynamic formulation practice.
Lesson 3 • Projection, Splitting, and Primitive Defenses
Examines the neural basis of projection and splitting in borderline and psychotic conditions. Links these defenses to failures in prefrontal integration and affect regulation.
Lesson 4 • Taxonomy of Defense Mechanisms
Reviews the hierarchy of defenses from primitive to mature using Vaillant's framework. Establishes a shared clinical language for subsequent neurobiological mapping.
Lesson 5 • Sublimation, Humor, and Mature Defenses
Explores the neuroscience of creativity, humor, and altruism as mature defensive operations. Demonstrates how higher cortical functions enable adaptive transformation of conflict.

Chapter 7See details

Psychopathology Through a Neuropsychoanalytic Lens

Lesson 1 • Personality Disorders and Structural Deficits
Examines borderline, narcissistic, and antisocial presentations through neurobiological and structural psychoanalytic frameworks. Links early relational trauma to lasting brain changes.
Lesson 2 • Depression and the SEEKING System
Analyzes depression as a collapse of the SEEKING system combined with hyperactive PANIC/GRIEF. Integrates neurobiological and object-relational accounts of depressive illness.
Lesson 3 • Anxiety Disorders and Fear Circuitry
Maps generalized anxiety, panic disorder, and phobias onto amygdala-based fear networks. Connects psychoanalytic anxiety theory to contemporary fear-conditioning research.
Lesson 4 • Trauma-Related Conditions and Dissociation
Covers PTSD, complex trauma, and dissociative disorders using neurobiological and relational frameworks. Connects structural dissociation theory to neural network fragmentation.
Lesson 5 • Psychosis and Reality Testing
Integrates dopamine dysregulation, predictive coding failures, and psychoanalytic theories of psychosis. Provides a neuropsychoanalytic model of hallucination and delusion formation.

Chapter 8See details

Therapeutic Action and Neurobiological Change

Lesson 1 • Integrating Neuroscience Into Clinical Practice
Provides practical frameworks for incorporating neurobiological knowledge without reducing clinical work to brain science. Maintains psychoanalytic depth while adding scientific rigor.
Lesson 2 • Neuroimaging Evidence for Psychotherapy Outcomes
Reviews studies showing brain changes following psychodynamic and psychoanalytic treatment. Builds the evidence base students need to justify neuropsychoanalytic approaches.
Lesson 3 • Mechanisms of Therapeutic Change
Examines insight, corrective emotional experience, and mentalization as change mechanisms. Evaluates each through neuroplasticity and memory reconsolidation research.
Lesson 4 • Future Directions in Neuropsychoanalysis
Surveys emerging research areas including psychedelic neuroscience, computational psychiatry, and embodied cognition. Prepares students to engage with the field's evolving frontier.
Lesson 5 • Transference and Countertransference Neurologically
Reframes transference as implicit memory activation and countertransference as somatic resonance. Applies right-brain communication models to the analytic dyad.

Certification

Your valid completion certificate

This course is for you:

Psychodynamic therapist: wants a scientifically grounded framework for existing clinical work.
Psychiatry resident: seeks depth psychology to complement biological training already received.
Clinical psychology graduate student: building an integrative identity before entering full practice.
Psychoanalytic candidate: ready to situate analytic theory within contemporary brain science.
Neuroscience researcher: curious about how psychoanalytic constructs map onto empirical findings.
Counselor or social worker: drawn to deeper explanatory models beyond symptom-focused approaches.

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