Seek and You Shall Find. A Neuropsychoanalytic Perspective on Seeking

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.46553/RPSI.21.41.2025.p113-125

Keywords:

Trastornos del estado de ánimo, affect, seeking, homeostasis, mood disorders

Abstract

This lecture is part of a webinar organized by the Turning Point Foundation for Health and Sustainability represented by its president, Dr. Andrea Rodriguez Quiroga, with the aim of promoting research-based clinical training. This webinar lasted two hours and consisted of a presentation of the theory in relation to SEEKING as an affect, its neuropsychoanalytic background and its clinical application. Finally, a clinical case was presented but is not reproduced in this paper for confidentiality reasons.

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Author Biography

Mark Solms, Psychology Department and Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape Town

Professor Mark Solms was educated at Pretoria Boys' School and the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. He emigrated to England in 1988, where he worked academically at University College London (Department of Psychology) and clinically at the Royal London Hospital (Department of Neurosurgery), while training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis (1989–1994). He returned to South Africa in 2002 and is currently Director of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital (Departments of Psychology and Neurology) and the Training Director of the South African Psychoanalytic Association. He is also the Research Director of the International Psychoanalytic Association (since 2013).
He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Sigourney Award, the IPA Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award, and Honorary Fellowship of the American College of Psychiatrists. He is the Director of Training for the South African Psychoanalytic Association and Director of the Science Department of the American Psychoanalytic Association. He has published 350 articles in neuroscientific and psychoanalytic journals and is the author of eight books. His most recent, *The Hidden Spring*, appeared in early 2021 (recently translated into Spanish). Dr. Solms has made an indelible mark on his field. He is the editor and translator of the Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (24 Vol.) and the Complete Neuroscientific Works of Sigmund Freud (4 Vol.).

References

Panksepp, J. & Biven, L. (2012). The archaeology of mind: Neuroevolutionary origins of human emotions. W. W. Norton & Company.

Solms, M. (2017). What is "the unconscious," and where is it located in the brain? A neuropsychoanalytic perspective. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, 1406(1), 90-97. https://doi.org/10.1111/nyas.13437

Solms, M. (2018). The neurobiological underpinnings of psychoanalytic theory and therapy. Frontiers in Behavioral Neuroscience, 12, Article 294. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnbeh.2018.00294

Solms, M. (2018). The feeling brain: Selected papers on neuropsychoanalysis. Taylor & Francis.

Solms, M. (2021). The hidden spring: A journey to the source of consciousness. Profile Books.

Solms, M. (2021). A revision of Freud's theory of the biological origin of the Oedipus complex. The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 90(4), 555-581. https://doi.org/10.1080/00332828.2021.1984153

Solms, M. (2024). The hidden spring: A journey to the source of consciousness. Capitan Swing S.L.

Published

04/30/2025

How to Cite

Solms, M. (2025). Seek and You Shall Find. A Neuropsychoanalytic Perspective on Seeking. Revista De Psicología, 21(41), 113–125. https://doi.org/10.46553/RPSI.21.41.2025.p113-125

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Articles