The implosion of reality: schizophrenia, the anterior cingular cortex and anticipation

In contemporary neuroscientific and psychiatric research into schizophrenia, we can observe a shift in focus from the clinical dysfunctions (positive and negative symptoms) towards a mapping of the cognitive function. In this paper we look at a specific cognitive problem area in schizophrenic brain functioning, the Anterior Cingulate Cortex (ACC). We show what the ACC is, what it probably does and how this is relevant in research concerning certain psychiatric disorders. Then we explain the role of the ACC in choice anticipation. In this we underline the possible link between choice anticipation and the lack of ‘Error Related Negativity’ (ERN) in this specific area. Lastly we incorporate this approach to the problem of schizophrenic anticipation within the neuropsychoanalytical framework and the role it might play in the formation of hallucinations and delusion

Time to separate the men from the beasts: symbolic anticipation as the typically human subjective dimension

In this paper it is argued that the dividing line that runs between the human psyche as opposed to any other complex system is made up by symbolic anticipation. The functionality of the human mind as an anticipatory system is entirely caught up in the crucial role that finiteness, shortage or lack plays for human beings. Anticipation for us is the way by which this negative finiteness or lack is translated into a positive longing, want or desire. We take a look at the three dimensional view of Jacques Lacan regarding these matters in a sophistical example and we illustrate how anticipation as a Symbolic phenomenon is distinct from the Imaginary or the Real register. As Lacan points out anticipation creates a symbolic social link which binds two or more interacting humans together in an anticipatory relationship. Beliefs, expectations and convictions are the typically human social links which ground human interaction and set it apart from other forms of social interaction we can observe in other complex biological entities

De doodsdrift ten aanzien van het reële

The Death Drive, regarding the Real Where do we find the link between the Freudian death drive and the Lacanian Real? In this theoretical enquiry we follow the growing pains of the death drive and the Real in the writings of Freud and Lacan and the relationships between both. With Freud we examine where we can place the death drive in a theoretical framework. This search undoubtfully leads us to the constitution of the pleasure experience which is very hard to understand in relation to the death drive. We run into the trauma, which is the pleasuresome encounter with the Real. Secondly we concentrate upon the Lacanian elaboration of the death drive in the subjects genesis. Through this study we come to the Real as that enigmatic category which escapes every elaboration. This Real is then examined in combination with the death drive in an attempt to formulate both in an understandable relation. The Borromean Knot of the Real-Symbolic- Imaginary in masochism concludes this paper

From insufficiency to anticipation, an introduction to 'Lichaamskaart'

In this paper we take up the point of symbolic-imaginary anticipation and we combine it with the mirror stage, worked out by Jacques Lacan in numerous publications. We place the mirror stage within its complex temporal framework and explain how the three topological categories (RSI) follow from this most intimate of subjective experiences in the double mirror set up. All kinds of psychopathological mechanisms are traceable to this period in subjective development. Until recently it was impossible to find direct traces of this defining and unchanging moment. Since the beginning of 1990 a new method of therapy was devised in Duffel, named ‘lichaamskaart’, or body map. We point out the likeness and differences between the double mirror stage and the construction of the lichaamskaart. In conclusion we illustrate the relationship between anticipatory systems and the therapeutic process involved in lichaamskaart

Circumcising the void: (de)contextualising in complex Lacanian psychoanalysis

In contemporary psychoanalysis, the true origin of the science seems to be put aside to get it in vogue with the rest of the scientific framework and psychoanalytical thinking. Although this is a defendable position from which to approach psychoanalysis, it robs it of its core. In this paper, we take the hard-core themes of psychoanalysis such as death and sex, to heart and show how they can be linked to the other sciences, such as the theory of complexity, without censoring or rephrasing the concepts or the language itself

Time is of the essence: the importance of anticipation in the treatment of schizophrenia

In the treatment of schizophrenia we can observe a certain inclination towards anticipatory theories and methods. Especially in the areas of prevention and early detection we see this development taking shape. What is mostly lacking in this novel approach is the idea that anticipation is deeply nested in every living system, even a pathological one. The dynamics of the process change during the course of observation and make meaningful predictions more difficult. So it is of the utmost importance to analyze the field of emergence which is schizophrenia as a plain of divisions, schisms and faulty recombinations, embedded from the start. The time(observer) approach in the therapeutic setting from a subjective point of view offers a way to approach and understand the tension that exists in the developmental lines within schizophrenia (pathological, ordinal, original, transcendental). We demonstrate this problem using the technique of lichaamskaart in the therapeutic time perspective