Winter Workshop
Instincts, Drives, and Affective Consciousness: A Lacanian Neuropsychoanalytic Perspective
Date: January 28, 2023: 9am-12pm
Credits: 3 CE
Meeting Location: Zoom
Presenter: John Dall'Aglio
This presentation will consider the neuropsychoanalytic taxonomy of the drives from a Lacanian perspective. Rather than adopting the common Lacanian criticism of (homeostatic) instinct versus drive (and jouissance), I propose that this dichotomy is no longer scientifically tenable. From my Lacanian neuropsychoanalytic perspective, drive is the aberration of instinct, the formal structure of inherited instinctual systems that are derailed from their homeostatic course. Such aberration is not an accidental effect of external circumstances; this instinctual derailment is part and parcel of affective consciousness.
This talk will describe the neuroscientific and Lacanian arguments for understanding drive as the aberration of instinct. Such an immanent critique problematizes a straightforward interpretation of the neuropsychoanalytic thesis of the "conscious id." Rather than seeing the upper brainstem as the fount of affective consciousness, in a Lacanian lens, the upper brainstem is a fount of jouissance - the paradoxical excess of tension outside the managerial capacities of the ego. The source of consciousness is paradoxically external to the self-reflective conscious ego. Several theoretical and clinical implications follow from this position. First, I will highlight the distinction between affect and jouissance. Then, I will discuss how language in the Lacanian sense of the symbolic register affect even at the most primitive levels of the upper brainstem. This abandons the commonplace cognitive-affective dichotomy and bears clinical implications for working with the motoric aspect of speech.
Learning Objectives:
Describe an alternative to the traditional drive-instinct dichotomy, where drive is the structural aberration of instinct
Apply the distinction between affect and jouissance to Solmsian neuropsychoanalytic drive theory
Consider the clinical implications of Lacanian neuropsychoanalytic drive theory
Presenter Bio:
John Dall'Aglio is a PhD student in clinical psychology at Duquesne University. His theoretical and clinical research work explores the link between psychoanalysis and neuroscience, especially Lacanian neuropsychoanalysis. His research interests also include the study of linguistic patterns in neurologic patient speech and the teaching of neuropsychoanalysis, especially in undergraduate education.
Recommended Reading:
Dall'Aglio, J. (2021). Reply To Mark Solms. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(4), 775-777.
Dall'Aglio, J. (2021). Sex and Prediction Error, Part 1: The Metapsychology of Jouissance. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(4), 693-714.
Dall'Aglio, J. (2021). Sex and Prediction Error, Part 2: Jouissance and The Free Energy Principle in Neuropsychoanalysis. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(4), 715-741.
Dall'Aglio, J. (2021). Sex and Prediction Error, Part 3: Provoking Prediction Error. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(4), 743-765.
Solms, M. (2021). Commentary On Dall'Aglio. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(4), 767-774.
Solms, M. (2021). Revision of drive theory. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 69(6), 1033-1091.
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