The Neuropsychoanalysis Open school

Please note – this event is not hosted
by the Neuropsychoanalysis Association – for any questions
regarding registration please contact Irith Barzel-Raveh at: irbarzel@gmail.com.

Neuropsychoanalysis – Open school

Ethology, sociobiology and evolutionary psychology study animal and human behavior in the light of evolutionary theory. Naturally these disciplines aspire to base their findings on neurophysiology. Acquaintance with animals and their inner life is therefore a natural step also for the development of neuropsychoanalysis – this is the content of the following 10 meetings. All the lectures are recorded and uploaded to the website neuropsychoanalysis.co.il. The lectures are open to the registrants for another year only until 5/1/2025.

Click here to view the introductory lecture.

 

To register, please click here.

14.4.24 ­– A brief introduction to evolutionary theory from Darwin onwards. Natural selection, phylogeny and ontogeny. Modern revisions: selfish genes, epigenetic inheritance and the current biome revolution. Neoteny and the uniqueness of Homo sapiens. 

12.5.24 – What is life? Schrodinger’s seminal book revisited. The roles of energy, entropy and information underlying all life processes are explained in a simple, non-technical manner, anticipating their use in Freud’s early formulations.

9.6.24 – Evolution of behavior: The innate mechanisms of reflex and instinct, as opposed to environment-guided learning. Sex and aggression, release vs. inhibition mechanisms. The super-stimulus in animals and humans.

14.7.24 – Human sexuality. Virginity, menstruation, latency and other intrigues unique to Homo sapiens. Freudian and post-Freudian formulations of sexuality.

11.8.24 – Social interactions. Lorenz & Tinbergen’s studies of Imprinting, parenting and bonding across vertebrates. Bowlby’s model of attachment in humans.

8.9.24 – Introducing neurophysiology: Neuron, synapse, neurotransmitter. Reflex, instinct and learning. The brain’s hierarchy and “archaeology”: consecutive evolution of neural strata from brainstem to cortex, and their complex interactions thereof.

13.10.24 – Trauma and defense mechanisms. Trauma and the corticolimbic system (prefrontal cortices, amygdala, and hippocampus). What neural changes are brought about by therapy?

10.11.24 – Sleep and dreaming, in humans and animals, from the evolutionary perspective. REM and nonREM, deprivation studies, dream and learning. Psychoanalytic theories.

8.12.24 – Reafference as a possible neural mechanism of therapeutic insight – the lecturer’s own hypothesis. Why are there no pleasurable hysterical symptoms? Whence paradoxical intent? The reafference mechanism offers a unifying principle.

5.1.25 – Open questions: The riddle of consciousness, the mind-body problem. Is there free will? Here I indulge in speculations from my own expertise, quantum mechanics.

Bios
Avshalom Elitzur is at the Center for quantum Studies in Chapman University. His main research is in quantum physics. He has published in some other disciplines as well. His peer-reviewed articles in psychology deal with the psychoanalysis of religious experiences, psychology of humor, and the “hard problem” of consciousness. With Haim Omer, he has co-authored the paper What would you say to the person on the roof? A suicide prevention text, which has been translated into several languages and elicited numerous quotes and responses from leading authorities in suicide prevention.

Irith Barzel-Raveh (Moderator) is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and supervisor in Psychotherapy. She is the Founder and Chairwoman of the Israeli Neuropsychoanalytic Society, and a founder member and a Board member of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. She coordinated the course “Normalcy in Infancy” at the Tel Aviv University Medical School. She taught Infant Observation in collaboration with Tavistock to a range of professionals from multiple disciplines. She was a head clinical psychologist of the Neuropediatric infant development center for the Tel-Aviv area and was head of 26 well-baby transdisciplinary clinics. She is a specialist in Professor Heinz Prechtel’s method of functional assessment of fetus General Movement (functional assessment of the brain). She is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics at Bar-Ilan University, where she is working on her dissertation under the guidance of Dr Aner Govrin and Professor Mark Solms. She also works at her private clinic.