GALATZER-LEVY, R.M.:
Screen Memories and Non-linear Dynamics (Chaos Theory)
Galatzer-Levy, R.M., Chicago, IL, USA
(Presented at the Conference «FREUD'S SCREEN MEMORIES in the Light of the Contemporary Psychoanalysis and Neurosciences» in Prague, May 4-6, 2006)
Abstract
Explicit memories are but one way experience is memorialized by the brain. Screen memories, like all memories, result from the brain's current active categorization of certain brain activity as representing past events.The concept of neural network will be introduced, explained and used to show that all such memorialization occurs through the operation of neural networks which are ever changing and ever being transformed. Several forms of neural network have been described that memorialize information. They share the feature that memories are stored throughout the network, not at one location, that memory is ever changing, and that memory retrieval depends on the presentation of stimuli that are sufficiently related to the memory. In particular, neural networks may instantiate semantic networks thereby creating patterns of meaning through their own operation. Screen memories may be understood as particularly potent keys that stimulate parts of a semantic network that memorializes centrally important past experience and the working through of screen memories may be understood in terms of the exploration of that semantic network.
Neural networks are intrinsically non-linear so that their patterns of operation are best understood in terms of non-linear dynamics. In this paper relevant concepts of non-linear dynamics will be explained and applied to neural networks to explain how screen memories emerge from experiences that shape the operation of the neural network and how their powerfully condensed quality reflect their emergent origin.
Throughout the paper the relevant concepts of neural networks and non-linear dynamics will be explained on an elementary level. Several clinical vignettes will illustrate how these concepts can be clinically applied.
Other texts from the Conference Freud 2006.
Other online articles on psychoanalysis.
