Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD, MSciEd, MBA -Scientific faculty member, Administrator, Community Relations Coordinator, & Editor-in-Chief of the ORI Press
Dr. Rozentsvit is a neurologist and neurorehabilitation specialist, trained in psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic psychotherapy, with extensive experience in brain trauma, autoimmune neurological and neuropsychiatric conditions. Author of “Neurobiology is Destiny: A Guide to Brain-Mind-Soul Matters,” designed for non-scientists and mental health professionals (will be published in 2012). Instructor of a new course at the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis: “Neurobiology for Psychoanalysts and Psychotherapists.”
2/7/12 – 3/6/12 (4 weeks, Tuesdays, no class on 2/14; 8:00 -9:30 pm) - Neurobiology for Psychoanalysts and Psychotherapists: Introduction (with Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD) (NEW!)
3/11/12 (Sunday, 11am-3pm, workshop) – Neuropsychiatric syndromes: State of mind in chronic illness (Multiple sclerosis, Lupus, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and others) (with Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD)
4/3/12 - 4/24/12 2012 (4 weeks, Tuesdays, 7:45-9:15pm) - Neurobiology for Psychoanalysts and Psychotherapists: Intermediate level (with Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD) (NEW!)
5/5/12 (Saturday, 11am – 3pm) – How the brain tricks the mind – Alien hand syndrome, Tourette’s, Capgras, Cotard syndromes, and many more (with Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD)
1) Was Emily Dickinson a Neuroscientist? Neurobiology: How It Relates to Psychoanalysis and to Our Sense of Being a Human.
2) The Neurobiological Basis of Thanksgiving, or Neuroscience of Giving and Receiving
Was Emily Dickinson a Neuroscientist?
Neurobiology: How It Relates to Psychoanalysis and to Our Sense of Being a Human.
by Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD
“The Astonishing Hypothesis is that ‘You’, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behavior of vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased it: ‘You are nothing but a pack of neurons.’” (Francis Crick)
Preparing for a talk, “Neurobiology of Destiny OR Neurobiology is Destiny,” a few years ago, I discovered a beautiful poem by Emily Dickinson, “The Brain”:
The Brain - is wider than the Sky -
For - put them side by side -
The one the other will contain
With ease, and You – beside.The Brain is deeper than the Sea -
For, hold them, blue to blue, -
The one the other will absorb,
As sponges, buckets do.The Brain is just the weight of God -
For, heft them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.Through this poem, Emily Dickinson was able to transcend many bridges, and not only to modern American poetry. For many decades, even centuries, we “designated” neurologists and neuroscientists to be in charge of the Brain; psychiatrists and psychologists – in charge of the Mind; poets – in charge of the Soul; and philosophers – to ponder upon what it means to be Human. Driven to learn as much as possible in our specialties, we came to the realization that it is not really enough to be good in just what we are “designated” to do, and that to succeed, we need to cooperate (remember the Prisoner’s Dilemma?). That is how, despite all resistances, new paradigms have emerged in science and in all spheres of our lives. One of them was in drawing on the understanding of the neurobiological roots of everything – from politics, national security, trade, finance, and economics to memory and learning, our sense of “being a human,” feeling ourselves flourishing, “good enough” parenting, and “holistic” health.
In clinical mental health practice, learning about neurobiology of the psyche helps us to better understand ourselves and our clients’ conditions – including disorders of personality, intellect, self, attachment, emotions, social adjustment, sexual identity, reality testing, addictions, psychological trauma, and many others. So, what is neurobiology? When Sigmund Freud said, “Anatomy is destiny,” did he really mean “Neurobiology is destiny,” considering that our knowledge and our professional lingo had changed through the past century? Very likely so. Neurobiology is a collective word for all neurosciences: neuro- anatomy, physiology, histology, pathology, physiology, chemistry, endocrinology, imaging, psychology, as well as neurology, psychoanalysis, computational neurobiology, and many other disciplines contributing to our knowledge about brain-mind-soul interactions.
Another paradigm (or rather paradigm shift) had emerged in science and everyday life, from a desperate need of different professionals to learn from each other, to cooperate, and to engage in transdisciplinary explorations rather than in individual specialty-based research, or even in an inter-disciplinary (team-based) approach. In 1962, Thomas Kuhn wrote: “The historian of science may be tempted to exclaim that when paradigms change, the world itself changes with them. Led by a new paradigm, scientists adopt new instruments and look in new places. Even more important, scientists during revolutions see new and different things when looking with familiar instruments in places they have looked before. It is rather as if the professional community had been suddenly transported to another planet – where familiar objects are seen in a different light, and are joined by unfamiliar ones as well” (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, p.111). Should psychoanalysts worry that neuroscientists will claim an authority over “mind matters,” since brain and mind are so interconnected and since neuroscience has more “evidence-based” research? Definitely not. We should open our minds and learn from each other. Neuroscientists offer “broader views of behaviors that were previously considered entirely psychological in origin…(while)… psychoanalytic theory is challenged … to provide important questions for further research. … (T)here is no danger that mind will disappear” (Cooper, 1985).
The Neurobiological Basis of Thanksgiving, or Neuroscience of Giving and Receiving
by Inna Rozentsvit
“… (G)iving liberates the soul of the giver.” Maya Angelou
“Generosity is not giving me that which I need more than you do, but it is giving me that which you need more than I do.” Khalil Gibran
“Any act that I do for myself will take me to mortality and any small
action that I do for others would take me to immortality.” Dr. Gururaj Karajagi
Were they special, Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and Princess Diana? Yes! They had giving hearts and generous souls. But what particular structure or ingredient of these hearts and souls would determine their superb giving abilities? Recent discoveries in neurobiology provide some answers: human brains (not hearts) are hard-wired to receive more pleasure from giving than receiving.
With the rise of neurobiology, functional MRI (fMRI) machines and their masters have become the heroes of our times. These fMRIs use a special (also safe and non-invasive) blood-oxygen-level dependent (BOLD) imaging signal to provide a high-resolution report about specific and dynamic brain activities. The technique enables neuroscientists to look inside the normally functioning (i.e., not drugged or operated on) and interacting brain. Because of the fMRI-based neurobio-revolution, we know that “medial prefrontal regions … are considered essential for mental state attribution and self-reflection, [while] … anterior temporal lobe represents abstract social semantic knowledge; [and] only activity in the superior anterior temporal cortex … correlates with the richness of detail with which social concepts describe social behavior” (Zahn et al., 2007).
To summarize, fMRI technology helps us to understand our Selves, our behaviors, emotions, and social constructs. It has helped me, personally, to do so. During conversations with colleagues, I had proposed that giving is more pleasurable than receiving, and that giving-over-receiving is very natural to human beings. I was then “diagnosed” as being a “masochist,” a “pleaser,” or even having an “altruistic personality disorder.” None of these felt like an “aha” moment, but there was no scientific proof of my propositions at that time, until recently.
Dr. Jordan Grafman and his colleagues from the Cognitive Neuroscience Division of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) used fMRIs on volunteers who played computer games involving receiving and giving, and earning money for real-life charities while doing so. When people received money, dopamine-producing areas were activated (the same as in drug-, food-, and love-craving situations), and this was expected. Some unexpected findings were that the “mesolimbic reward system is engaged by donations in the same way as when monetary rewards are obtained. … Medial orbitofrontal-subgenual and lateral orbitofrontal areas, which also play key roles in more primitive [i.e., hard-wired] mechanisms of social attachment and aversion, specifically mediate decisions to donate or to oppose societal causes” (Moll et al., 2006). Dr. Grafman found that even when altruistic choices are made over selfish ones, more anterior prefrontal cortex areas are recruited; meaning that we perceive more reward when we give than when we receive! This is all despite all our previous assumptions about evolutionary “selective advantages of selfish traits” (Baschetti, 2007). Besides, giving activates some areas of the brain which receiving does not – areas of the “cuddle” hormone oxytocin, which is released when we are feeling attachment; it is also called a “hormone of trust.”
Neuroscientists from NINDS also discovered that when people were making decisions about high-cost donations, their prefrontal cortex area (which is also involved in decision-making and in moral reasoning) was activated. Since this area is not developed as much in other species, neuroscientists found this charitable brain activity to be specific to humans. Since the volunteers made all donations anonymously, the factors of mere reciprocity, as well as expectation or seeking approval or recognition, were ruled out. Their brains registered pleasure merely from the act of donation. Dr. Grafman concluded also that charitable behavior is a learned one, as it characterizes more evolved brain area (cortex), and this is why children (with their still-evolving brains) would usually choose receiving over giving (NINDS, 2006).
Another piece of valuable information came from the fMRI group at Duke University: posterior superior temporal cortex (pSTC), known to respond to goal-directed actions of others, is activated in the brains of people making charitable donations, which meant that “altruism is associated with an increased neural response to agency” (Tankersley et al., 2007). The pSTC area was activated the most when the volunteers were involved in “watching” sessions, where the charities were receiving the winnings (it was mostly true for those who do charitable work in real life). Thus, Dr. Scott Huettel from Duke University concluded that altruism might have evolved from a low-level brain task of attributing what’s happening to others, and from the perception of goals and intentions of others (Stimson, 2007).
The neurobiology of giving has just started to gain recognition, and I believe that we will see more of it in the years to come. So I am joining Dr. Grafman in the conclusion that giving and donating is “only going to support our own brain's evolution. It's good for the species – donate.”
Inna Rozentsvit, M.D., PhD, MBA, MSciEd is a neurologist and neurorehabilitation specialist, trained in psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. She is a founder of the Neurorecovery Solutions, a non-profit organization which helps neurologically impaired and their caregivers in their often heart-breaking journey to well-being. Dr. Rozentsvit is also an educator who works with children with learning and emotional disabilities, while applying knowledge from the fields of neurology, basic sciences, mental health, and pedagogy to solving puzzles of miscommunications and every-day interactions of these children and their parents. Dr. Rozentsvit is a scientific faculty member and an administrator of the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. Her initiative “Support Mental Health Education” on Facebook (Cause # 361700) was well-received by many mental health professionals, students, and even patients. Her course on Neurobiology and Psychoanalysis at the ORI will include important for all mental health professionals topics: Neurobiology of Self; Neurochemistry of emotions; Neurological disorders (Parkinson’s disease, stroke, and Multiple Sclerosis) in the eyes of a psychotherapist; Neurobiology of psychosomatic illness; Neuroscience of anger and violence; and others.
"Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude.
Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road."
[John Henry Jowett]
Intro to the Object Relations Thinking and Clinical Technique - with Dr. Kavaler-Adler (part 1).
Projective Identification: Object Relations View (part 2 of the mini-video series)
Time as an Object - Object Relations view (part 3 of mini-video series)
Self Sabotage - Object Relations view (part 4 of mini-video series)
Fear of Success - Object Relations View (part 5 of mini-video series)
Mourning, Developmental vs. Pathological (part 6)
Bad Objects and Loyalty to Bad Objects - Object Relations View (part 7)
Support Our Cause on FACEBOOK: Support Mental Health Education!
Please note - NEW
- Mail correspondence to: ORI
Administrator, 75-15 187 Street, Fresh Meadows, NY, 11366-1725
New: Tel: 646.522.0387 Fax:
718.785.3270 Email:
admin@ORINYC.org
Inquiries about psychotherapy
and psychoanalysis training:
DrKavalerAdler@gmail.com
Disclaimer: This
site and its services, including the contents of this site are for informational
purposes only.
It does not
provide medical or any other health care advice, diagnosis or
treatment.
Copyright © 2000
Object Relations Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Website created by
MindMendMedia (last updated on
05/16/2012).
Click & Watch 10-min
professional video of the ORI's 2011 Annual 20th Anniversary Conference on
Dialectics of Mortality and Immortality: Time as a Persecutory vs. a Holding
Object.
