Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gxg78 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T05:15:40.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Aspects of Brain-mind Relationship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2018

Thomas D. Power
Thomas D. Power*
Affiliation:
Spelga, Killowen, Co. Down, Northern Ireland
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

One of the most interesting parallels between the functioning of brain and mind is provided by Hughlings Jackson's Doctrine of Dissolution and Freud's theory of psychological regression. Basically, they each imply that under certain circumstances the organism partially or wholly reverts to an earlier stage of functional organization, the one in the bodily and the other in the mental sphere. At first sight the parallel would seem to end here, for neurological dissolution is usually regarded as a passive process, an unmasking of lower levels of functioning by organic disease, while regresson consists of an active withdrawal to an earlier stage of mental development, usually, but not always, brought about by difficulties in external adjustment. Nevertheless, we can attempt a reconciliation between the two if we regard the ‘positive” symptoms of nervous dissolution as representing attempts on the part of a crippled nervous system to adjust to a normal environment. Viewed from this angle both neurological dissolution and psychological regression present themselves as dynamic reactions to stress, promoted in the one instance by internal and in the other by external difficulties. That the two mechanisms are in fact related is suggested by two facts: first, that the symptoms of nervous dissolution can be made worse by environmental difficulties (Cf. Goldstein's “catastrophic reaction”), and second, that regression occurs regularly in sleep, which is surely organically determined.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal of Psychiatry , Volume 111 , Issue 481 , December 1965 , pp. 1215 - 1223
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1965 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barcroft, J. (1941). Nature, Lond., 147, 762.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
British Medical Journal (1958). Leading Article, July 5th, p. 36.Google Scholar
Coghill, G. E. (1929). Anatomy and the Problem of Behaviour. London: Cambridge Univ. Press.Google Scholar
Critchley, M. (1953). The Parietal Lobes. London: Arnold & Co., p. 334.Google Scholar
Denny-Brown, D. (1960). Lancet, ii, 1155.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dunbar, H. F. (1954). Emotions and Bodily Changes. New York: Columbia University Press, p. 35.Google Scholar
Freeman, W. (1929). Human Biol., 1, 406.Google Scholar
Freud, S. (1922). Beyond the Pleasure Principle. London: International Psychoanalytic Press, p. 43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frostig, J. P. (1940). Amer. J. Psychiat., 96, 1186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gesell, A. (1945). The Embryology of Behaviour. New York: Harper & Brothers, p. 46.Google Scholar
Goldstein, K. (1938). The Organism. New York: American Book Co., p. 31.Google Scholar
Head, H. (1926). Aphasia and Kindred Disorders of Speecch. Cambridge: University Press, 1, p. 510.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. H. (1881). “Remarks on dissolution of nervous system as exemplified by certain post-epileptic conditions.” Medical Press & Circular, 1, p. 329.Google Scholar
Jackson, J. H. (1889). “On the comparative study of diseases of the nervous system.” British Medical Journal, ii, p. 355. Both reprinted in Selected Writings. Edited by J. Taylor. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1931, 2, pp. 17, 18, 396.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jones, E. (1948). Papers on Psychoanalysis. London: Baillière, Tindall & Cox, p. 105.Google Scholar
Martin, J. B. (1959). Lancet, i, 999.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Martin, J. B. (1960). Lancet, i, 1362.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Meerloo, J. A. M. (1962). Psychoanalysis and the Psychoanalytic Review, 49, 77.Google Scholar
Piaget, J. (1929). The Child's Conception of the World. London: Kegan Paul, p. 167.Google Scholar
Power, T. D. (1945). Psychosomat. Med., 7, 279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, T. D. (1950). Brit. Med. J., ii, 1092.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, T. D. (1955). J. nerv. ment. Dis., 121, 535.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Power, T. D. (1957). J. nerv. ment. Dis., 125, 279.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, J. R. and Malzberg, B. (1939). Amer. J. Psychiat., 96, 207.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Selye, H. (1957). The Stress of Life. London: Longmans Green & Co., p. 228.Google Scholar
Sherrington, C. S. (1920). The Integrative Action of the Nervous System. Oxford University Press, p. 341.Google Scholar
Smithers, D. W. (1964). The Nature of Neoplasia in Man. London: E. & S. Livingstone.Google Scholar
Symonds, C. (1960). Injuries of the Brain and Spinal Cord and their Coverings. Edited by Brock, J. London: Cassell, p. 73.Google Scholar
Tinbergen, N. (1953). Social Behaviour in Animals. London: Methuen & Co., p. 115.Google Scholar
Whitty, C. W. M., and Lewin, W. (1960). Brain, 83, 648.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, S. A. K. (1908). Brain, 31, 186.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, S. A. K. (1920). Brain, 43, 220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, S. A. K. and Walshe, F. M. R. (1914). Brain, 37, 199.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Submit a response

eLetters

No eLetters have been published for this article.