The neuropsychobiology of yes and no

Abstract

In his article “Some Implications of New Developments in Neurobiology for Psychoanalytic Object Relations,” Kernberg (2021) applies neurobiological insights to psychoanalytic drive theory, placing it within the continuum of human motivation from biology to psychology. He revisits and revises the psychoanalytic theory of dual drives and the formation of the dynamic unconscious mind in view of the recent neuroscientific findings of affective brain systems – particularly considered through the formulations of Kleinian object relations theory (Klein, 1946). The main thesis of the article assigns a primary motivational role to the affective brain systems and their expression within the matrix of object relations. This commentary finds (1) emphatic agreement with the formulations of the main thesis but (2) disagreement with its wider premises, namely those related to the concept of the drives.