Some Aspects of Brain-mind Relationship

¹ Spelga, Killowen, Co. Down, Northern Ireland.

1. Nervous dissolution and psychological regression are presented as dynamic reactions to internal or external stress.

2. Nervous dissolution is viewed as a reversal of function along the path of development suggested by the embryological researches of Coghill, supplemented by those of Barcroft. Reversal of function along these lines involves a telescoping of adult patterns of behaviour into those of earlier origin, with the emphasis on the more distant past. In this process of unification there is de-differentiation of movement in the dimensions of Time and Space. There is also a progressively increasing tendency towards the development of repetitive or fixed activity.

3. In the psychological sphere, regression, when viewed from the psychoanalytic angle in neurotic illness and from the ordinary clinical standpoint in organically determined mental disorders, presents a parallel telescoping of experience, with the emphasis on the past. There is also (subjective) de-differentiation in the dimensions of Time and Space and a tendency towards the development of repetition.

4. It is suggested that those acute confusional states which are associated with a "retrograde amnesia" reflect a sudden recoil of the mind (a regression) to an earlier functional level, coupled with a telescoping of experience. Furthermore, that this runs parallel to an acute neurological dissolution.

5. Attention is called to those organic mental disturbances in which there is diminished awareness of the boundaries of the Self, mental and physical. Since this occurs normally in childhood it is interpreted as a regressive phenomenon. It is suggested that there may be a connection between this symptom and the "unconscious" mechanisms of "projection", "introjection" and "identification" revealed by psychoanalysis.