New Developments in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis – Tor Wager

New Developments in Neuroscience and Psychoanalysis Series
This exciting new online series hosted by the Neuropsychoanalysis Association throughout 2022 will showcase the cutting-edge knowledge that is currently emanating from neuroscientific disciplines and the field of psychoanalysis. The series includes presentations from leading authorities that will enhance neuropsychoanalytic understanding, while at the same time inspire our multidisciplinary community. The series will demonstrate the amazing variety of topics that are relevant to the fascinating field of neuropsychoanalysis.

Tor Wager, PhD
Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences
Dartmouth College

Friday, April 8
12 noon – 2 p.m. (Eastern Daylight Time)

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The webinar will be 2 hours long.

Until recently, scientists viewed pain and other symptoms as perceptions of the state of bodily tissues. A new, emerging idea is that pain and other symptoms are instead conceptions, reflecting the integration of peripheral input, beliefs about the context in which it occurs, and representations of the past and future self. Why might this be the case? And how are symptoms constructed in the brain? I discuss how pain experience is constructed in the brain, using examples from basic and clinical neuroscience, and how interventions that focus on the psychological context surrounding pain can reduce suffering and promote healing. Finally, I describe a new psychosocial treatment focused on changing pain beliefs, which in a recent study produced large, enduring benefits in chronic back pain.

Bio
Tor Wager is the Diana L. Taylor Distinguished Professor in Neuroscience at Dartmouth College. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in Cognitive Psychology in 2003, and served as an Assistant (2004-2008) and Associate Professor (2009) at Columbia University, and as Associate (2010-2014) and Full Professor (2014-2019) at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Since 2004, he has directed the Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience laboratory, a research lab devoted to work on the neurophysiology of affective processes—pain, emotion, stress, and empathy—and how they are shaped by cognitive and social influences. Dr Wager and his lab are also dedicated to developing analysis methods for functional neuroimaging and sharing ideas, tools, and scientific data with the scientific community and public. His full CV is linked here.

CPD credits: 2
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