Mourning and Melancholia

Mourning and Melancholia

Failures in the process of mourning take many forms. In a famous paper called “Mourning and Melancholia,” Freud contrasted the normal process of mourning with the pathology of melancholia (i.e. clinical depression). He argued that, in mourning, a person gradually comes to terms with loss by giving up (separating from) the lost love object, whereas in depression this cannot happen because the patient denies the loss. You cannot come to terms with a loss if you do not acknowledge that it has happened. Freud said that this was particularly apt to occur if the original attachment to the lost object had been a narcissistic one. In a narcissistic attachment, the separateness of the love object is not recognized, and it is treated as if it were part of the self.  Narcissism is contrasted with object love, which is a more mature form of attachment, where the independence of the love object is acknowledged. Freud showed that in melancholia, the patient denies the loss of the love object by identifying himself with it (by literally becoming that object in fantasy. The depression itself then results from the internalization of the feelings of resentment toward the object that has abandoned him. The narcissist attacks the internalized object with all the ruthless vengefulness of a lover scorned. 

This explanation seems to hold good for the third case of right-hemisphere syndrome that was investigated psychoanalytically. This case – Mrs, A (Kaplan-Solms & Solms, 2000, pp.173-179) – suffered severe spatial deficits, neglect, and anosognosia, but at the same time she was profoundly depressed. This is unusual for right-hemisphere patients, producing a paradoxical situation in which the patient was unaware of a loss (anosognosia) and yet simultaneously displaying severe depressive reactions to it. She was constantly in tears, lamenting the fact that she was such a burden to the medical and nursing staff, whose generous attention she did not deserve since she was not fit to live, and so on. The psychoanalytic investigation revealed that Mrs. A was, in fact, unconsciously very much aware of her loss, but she was denying it by means of the introjective process described by Freud. Unconsciously, Mrs. A did have an internalized image of her damaged, crippled self, and she attacked that image to the point of twice attempting to kill herself.

In this case, the patient was overwhelmed by feeling of the same type that the previous two patients managed (for the most part) successfully to suppress. In two final cases, the situation was more complicated still.

Mourning and Melancholia. Photo by Elena.

Consciousness in Nonhumans

Consciousness in Machines and in Nonhuman Mammals

When one starts thinking about the problem of consciousness, the question of whether or not a machine can be conscious begins to appear rather ridiculous. Some day this question might only be asked by people who are unfamiliar with the essential neuroscientific facts about consciousness. Consciousness has everything to do with being embodied, with awareness of one's bodily state in relation to what is going on around one. Moreover, this mechanism seems to have evolved only because bodies have needs. Consciousness is therefore deeply rooted in a set of ancient biological values. These values are what feelings are, and consciousness is feeling. It is therefore very difficult to imagine how, why, and where a disembodied machine would generate consciousness. This does not rule out the possibility of an artificial system with self-monitoring properties. But the self that it monitors would have to be a body (and preferably one with a long evolutionary history( if it is really going to generate feelings.

This argument has interesting implications, too, for the question of consciousness in other animals. It suggests that any animal with a brainstem designed roughly like our own – that is, a brainstem that modulates visceral processes and relays its output to cortex – is likely to experience consciousness. As it happens, all mammals have breainstems with nuclei that are structured and connected in roughly the same way as are those of humans – their brainstem nuclei even excrete the same chemicals (and deliver them to roughly the same places) as their human counterparts. There is therefore very good reason to believe that dogs, cats, dolphins, whales – even laboratory rats and mice – possess “core consciousness”. This implies that all mammals share our most basic (biologically rooted) values.

The same elementary things are likely to male a mouse and human being feel “good” and “bad”. We now that mice, no less than men, most probably feel pleasurable excitement when anticipating the consummation of a need, fear in the presence of an enemy, anger when prevented from having what they want, distress on being separated from loved ones, and so on. Recognizing these facts has profound ethical implications for humanity.

There are, however, “higher” levels of consciousness which involve neural structures that we do not share with other mammals. As a result, the nature of the cognitive aspects of their consciousness is likely to differ quite dramatically from our experience.

There is very good reason to believe that cats possess core consciousness. Photo by Elena.

Children of the Fleet

Children of the Fleet

By Orson Scott Card

What do you do when all your plans work out? When all your dreams come true?

In his heart, Dabeet was already gone. From the moment Graff told him he was accepted into Fleet School, Dabeet detached from his friends. None had been close – or so it seemed to Dabeet, since he never felt toward his friends the kind of relentless dependency that others seemed to feel. He noticed when he wasn't included in some event – a party, a movie, a new game – but he didn't mind much, because he had other things to do. And now that he was preparing to go to Fleet School, he declined such invitations as he received. There was no point in investing any more time and effort with people he would never see again.

His friends, if they noticed his increased distance, said nothing about it. It was the teachers who were most demanding. Dabeet had not understood until now how much his teachers valued him. They were so eager to congratulate him – not just once, but over and over. And without Dabeet telling a soul about it, news of his acceptance into Fleet School flew through Charlie Conn. But only the reachers seemed to think it mattered much.

There was only one real surprise for Dabeet – how painful it was to think of leaving Mother. For more than a year, he had bent all his efforts to get away from her preferably with many miles of empty space between him. Now that he was really leaving, he began to realize how completely she had given over her life to him, and how dependent he was on her. Perhaps one of the reasons he hadnèt minded that he didn't have close friends was that his mother cared about everything he did, praised what was praiseworthy, commiserated with his miseries, and constantly told others how gifted he was. That which had been most annoying about her – the constant brag, the promises and lies – was now the mainstay of his life, and he could not imagine living without seeing her every day.

And yet when she immediately started trying to think of ways to come with him, he resisted her almost instinctively. Yes, he would miss her, and going to this new school would be frightening because of her absence. But he also knew that it would be disastrous it, through some fluke, she were allowed to come along.

“They must need some kind of nursing staff for the children,” said Mother. “It wouldn't take me long to take a refresher course.”

“Nursing staff?” asked Dabeet.

“I was a school nurse, once upon a time,” said Mother.

It was the first Dabeet had ever heard of it. “Then why aren't you working in medicine?”

“Because I chose not to,” said Mother. “I chose to work at the same kind of job as the other women in the neighborhood.”

“The hate their jobs.”

“And so do I,” said Mother. “Why do they do their jobs even though they hate them?”

“To put food on the table for their families.”

Mother shrugged as if that answer would do for her, as well.

Children of the fleet. Photo by Elena.

Basic Neurophysiology

Basic Neurophysiology

The brain is made up of neurons, together with a range of non-nervous cells that act in support of neurons and help to maintain their survival. One of the unique properties of the living neuron is its capacity to transmit information. It does this by “firing”. This term denotes the fact that every cell periodically transmits small quantities of neurotransmitter to its neighboring neurons. All cells in the body absorb a and expel molecules. Neurons do this in a special way. Neurotransmitter molecules are expelled from the end of the axon of the neuron, into the small space separating it from the next cell, the synapse. The neurotransmitter substance is then taken up by receptors on the dendrites of neurons on the other side of the synapse. This affects the second set of neurons by increasing or decreasing the chances that they will fire. Thus, neurons are in constant communication with each other through neurotransmitters. The communication is constant. Neurons always have a base (“resting”) rate of firing; even when they are not specifically stimulated by other neurons, the fire at regular intervals. However, the action of other neurons via their neurotransmitters, modifies the base firing rate - making each neuron fire more, or less, frequently than its resting rate.

There are two general types of neurotransmitter: excitatory and inhibitory. The excitatory type (the most common) increases firing rates – or, more precisely, it increases the chances that the next neuron will fire. In increases the chances of it firing, because we are actually dealing with aggregates of large numbers of neurons firing in concert. Each neuron is influenced (via multiple neurotransmitters acting at multiple synopses) by dozens, even hundreds of thousands, of other neurons. Thus, the reception of an excitatory neurotransmitter increases the chances of the neuron firing. Similarly, an inhibitory neurotransmitter decreases the chances of that neuron firing. Because we are dealing with aggregates of neurons, it is the overall “average” outcome that will determine whether the neuron fires or not, or rather the rate at which it fires. To take a crude example, if 60% of a neuron's inputs are exciting it and 40% of them are inhibiting it, it is going to fire, but at a level not much above its base rate. If 90% are exciting it and 10% are inhibiting it, it is going to fire at a much faster rate. The complete mechanism of neurotransmission is more complex. For example, neurons are equipped with different synaptic receptors that receive, or “recognize,” different neurotransmitters – but this preliminary account conveys the essentials in sufficient detail for the purposes of this text.

So that is how neurons work. Again, it is worth noting that there is nothing mystical about these processes that “produce” the mind. They are just ordinary cellular processes. How they produce our beloved selves, with all the richness of our inner life, must involve something more than the simple facts of neurotransmission.

The Brain and the Inner World, Introduction to Basic Concepts. Mark Solms, Oliver Turnbull.

Where there is controversy, neuro-scientists can devise and execute critical experiments to test who is right and who is wrong. Typically (after some debate about whether the experiment was the correct test or not!), the losing side agrees that they were wrong. Illustration by Elena.

The Limbic System

Our Brain: The Limbic System

The term Limbic System is frequently used as though it referred to an anatomical structure, but it is really a theoretical concept about a group of structures that, many neuroscientists feel, are linked together in a functionally significant way. Because it is a theoretical concept rather than a concrete thing, different neuroscientists include different structures under the term “limbic system.” It is therefore a rather vaguely defined entity (the very usefulness of which some neuroscientists question).

However, more or less everyone includes the following structures in it. At its core is the hypothalamus. Around this core, and connected with it, the other limbic structures are arranged in a ringlike formation. Within the diencephalon, we include part of the thalamus (most theorists include the anterior and dorsomedial nuclei of the thalamus in the limbic system). Outside the diencephalon, in the temporal lobe, we include the amygdala and the hippocampus, together with a fiber pathway called the fornix, which courses under the corpus callosum as it links back to diencephalon, where it joins the hippocampus to a small nucleous but, rather, consists of a phylogenetically old kind of cortex, running along the inner surface of the temporal lobe. It is also strongly connected to the group of basal forebrain nuclei, including those embedded in the septum Several of these structures too are connected to the anterior cingulate gyrus, which is therefore also usually included in the limbic system.

This highly interconnected set of brain structures, most of which lie deep within the brain, comprises the limbic system. There are many other structures that connect with these in complicated ways, some of which are also sometimes considered “limbic.” Howere, these are not core components of the limbic system.

Limbic system is part of the basic anatomical material. The anatomical terms are mentioned time and again, and repeated exposure (especially in the context of discussion of their psychological functions) will lead to much greater familiarity with these terms and the anatomical structures to which they refer.

The Brain and the Inner World, Introduction to Basic Concepts. Mark Solms, Oliver Turnbull.

In the end, we believe, we shall be able to say with confidence: this is how the mind really works. Photo by Elena.