The book presents  an overview of the term neuropsychoanalysis and traces its historical and scientific foundations as well as its cultural implications. It also turns its attention to some blind spots, open questions, and to what the future may hold. It examines the cooperative and conflicted relationship between psychoanalysis and neuroscience. Articles from different fields investigate the neurological basis of psychoanalysis as well as the psychological terms of neurology. They also discuss what psychoanalysis has to offer neuroscience. In addition, the emerging neuro-psychoanalytical dialogue is enriched here by the voice of a culturally informed history of science. The book brings leading authorities on these topics into conversation with each other, creating an unprecedented opportunity to better understand the language of the psyche. Specific concerns include the discussion of corporeality, how the body figures into psychoanalysis, the meaning of the unconscious in connection with dreams, unconscious fantasies, and the field of epigenetics. Following a historical perspective the book provides a re-reading of Freud's drive theory, exploring his concept of life at the threshold of science and culture as well as the relationship between various representations, somatic states and the origin of drive.  Overall, the book argues that if the different methodological approaches of psychoanalysis and neuroscience are acknowledged not only for their individual uniqueness but also as a dialectic, then the resulting epistemological and methodological dialogue might open up a fascinating body of neuropsychoanalytical knowledge.

Sigrid Weigel, born 25 March 1950, is Director of the Center for Literary and Cultural Research in Berlin. She has held professorships at the universities of Hamburg, Zurich, and TU Berlin, and acted as director of Einstein Forum (Potsdam); she is a regular visiting professor in Princeton. Her research focuses on the dialectics of secularization, Jewish-German intellectual history (Heine, Freud, Warburg, Benjamin, Scholem, Arendt), and a cultural approach to the history of sciences (esp. genealogy, generation, memory).

Introduction.- PART I: PSYCHOANALYSIS AND NEUROSCIENCES: APPROACHES AND OPEN QUESTIONS.- Chapter 1: What is Neuropsychoanalysis? Mark Solms and Oliver Turnbull.- Chapter 2: Embodied Simulation and the Coding-Problem of Simulation Theory. Inventions from Cultural Sciences; Sigrid Weigel.- Chapter 3: The medulla oblongata is a very serious and beautiful object. A Comparison of Neuroscientific and Psychoanalytical Theories; Edith Seifert.- PART II: EMBODYMENT.- Chapter 4: Enactments in Transference: Embodiment, Trauma and Depression. What Psychoanalysis has to Offer to Neurosciences; Marianne Leuzinger-Bohleber.- Chapter 5: Couch Potato: Some Remarks Concerning the Body of Psychoanalysis; Ulrike Kadi.- PART III: THE MEANING OF THE UNCONSCIOUS.- Chapter 6: Dreams, Unconscious Fantasies and Epigenetics; Tamara Fischmann.- Chapter 7: Signs and Soul. French Psychiatry in the 19th Century and the   Emergence of Psychodynamics; Gerhard Scharbert.- PART IV: REVISIONS OF THE DRIVE.- Chapter 8: Beyond the Death Drive. Freuds Concept of Life at the Threshold of Sciences and Culture; Sigrid Weigel.- Chapter 9: Drive and Love: Revisiting Freuds Drive Theory; Yoram Yovell.- Chapter 10: The Island of Drive. Representations, Somatic States and the Origin of Drive; François Ansermet and Pierre Magistretti.- Bibliography.