Sloan-Menninger-Shevrin Award Ceremony

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In honor of the special friendship of three men – Alfred Pritchard Sloan, William Clare Menninger and Karl Augustus Menninger – and in honor of Howard Shevrin, who died in Ann Arbor on January 18, 2018, annual prizes are awarded to an emerging researcher and an established researcher.

Friday, February 25
6 p.m. – 8 p.m. (Central European Time)

Start time in selected time zones

Registration is now closed.

Here below is the recording of this event:

 

For submissions/nominations for the
2022 Sloan-Menninger-Shevrin Award,
please click here.
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~2020~

 

Tali Marron, emerging researcher award 2020

 6 p.m.

Towards understanding the talking cure:

An fMRI study of emotional and cognitive outcomes of 5 sessions of free association

 

Free association is the verbalization of associative thoughts, feelings and wishes that come to mind, associations that are free of internal inhibition. It is commonly used as a psychotherapeutic tool. This research uses fMRI scanning and cognitive-behavioral and clinical methods to shed light on the neural mechanisms of free association and on the role of free association in creativity and in therapeutic processes. In previous work (Marron et al., 2018) we showed that chain Free Association(cFA), in which participants were required to verbalize a “chain” of single-word associations that came to mind, correlates with activation of the Default Mode Network (DMN), a network involved in self-generated and internally-directed thought. In recent work, we found that the FA-intervention increased expression of emotion and the use of adaptive intrapsychic defense mechanisms. These effects were accompanied by an increase in the involvement of the Posterior Cingulate Cortex (a major DMN hub) and by a reduction in the involvement of the left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (an executive hub). These observations suggest that FA enables emotional content to be symbolized in consciousness. 

  

Linda A.W. Brakel, established researcher award 2020

 6:30 p.m.

Primary Process, GeoCat, and Covid Vaccine Hesitancy

 

The Primary Process as an associational, a-rational mode of mentation is the star of this talk. The talk will feature: (1) the development of “GeoCat,” an instrument designed to independently index Primary Process vs Secondary Process categorizations. Then (2) empirical applications of GeoCat will be briefly presented, applications which lend evidential support to the existence of Primary Processes and the whereabouts of Primary Process predominance. And finally (3) the talk will announce a new research direction for GeoCat—GeoCat and a clear hypothesis about those with Covid Vaccine Hesitancy. 

 

 

~2021~

 

Michael Anderson, established researcher award 2021

7 p.m. 

On the Relationship Between Suppression and Repression

 

When people confront reminders to an unwanted memory or thought, they can engage a process that excludes the memory from awareness, inducing forgetting. I have argued that this simple process of retrieval-stopping is supported by an inhibitory control mechanism mediated by the right lateral prefrontal cortex to suppress the machinery of memory and disrupt retention. From the outset of this work 20 years ago, I have argued that this basic control mechanism bears striking relationship to Freud’s proposal that people can suppress unwanted memories and thoughts. One challenge, however, is that this process is voluntary and conscious, and it is unclear what its relationship is to unconscious repression.  In this talk, I will share recent work showing that the very same brain mechanism underlying conscious suppression is spontaneously engaged when people suffering from Psychogenic Amnesia are exposed to cues from the period they have forgotten. These findings argue for a mechanistic parallel between conscious and unconscious forms of repression, providing a concrete mechanism for the latter.  

 

Gerd Waldhauser, emerging researcher award 2021

7:30 p.m. 

Container-contained and the transformation of episodic memories

 

Psychoanalysis claims to provide a unique opportunity to confront, re-experience and integrate fragmented memories, overwhelming affective states and disturbing cognitions. How does this claim correspond to current neuroscientific findings? Based on research on traumatic and self-incongruent memories and Bion’s theory of thinking, I propose that the medial prefrontal cortex, together with the hippocampus, provides the cognitive system with the so-called alpha-function, that operates to integrate fragmented, sensory-emotional data into coherent representations of the inner and outer world. I argue that the therapeutic relationship enables the patient to develop this mental capacity through interleaving with the mindbrain of the therapist. This theory provides a neuropsychoanalytic framework for the interpretation of neuroimaging findings on the effect of psychotherapy for trauma-related disorders and it argues for the long-term treatment of traumatized patients in a high-frequency setting.