The 1st Semester shall be spent in making sense of the specificity of the psychoanalytic methodology. The difference of the psychoanalytic methodology with Medicine/Psychiatry other methodologies of Psychotherapy shall also be marked clearly. Half of the Semester shall be spent in a close reading of excerpts from Freud’s “theoretical” texts (for example The History of the Psychoanalytic Movement, Lines of Advance in Psycho-Analytic Therapy, Five Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, On Beginning the Treatment, The Future Prospects of Psycho-analytic Therapy, A Difficulty on the Path of Psycho-Analysis, New Introductory Lectures on Psycho-Analysis, An Outline of Psycho- Analysis, Some Elementary Lessons in Psycho-Analysis, Analysis Terminable and Interminable, Constructions in Analysis, Neurosis and Psychosis, The Loss of Reality in Neurosis and Psychosis, The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence, Screen Memories, On Dreams, On Psychotherapy, Obsessive Actions and Religious Practices). The other half shall be spent on reading rigorously 3 Case Histories of Freud (‘Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria, ‘Analysis of a Phobia in a Five-Year-Old Boy’ and ‘Notes upon a Case of Obsessional Neurosis’). The apparently theoretical texts and the Case Histories shall be brought to dialogue to make sense of the Freudian praxis. One would also see how the Case Histories form the Grundrisse of Freud’s Capital: The Critique of Libidinal Economy.

The 2nd Semester shall be spent in making sense of the specificity of the Freudian methodology. The difference of the Freudian methodology with other methodologies of psychoanalysis shall also be marked clearly. Half of the Semester shall be spent in a close reading of Freud’s “theoretical” texts. The other half shall be spent on reading rigorously 2 Case Histories of Freud (‘From the History of an Infantile Neurosis’ and ‘Notes upon an autobiographical account of a case of paranoia [dementia paranoids]’). Once again, one shall see how the theoretical texts – The Unconscious, Instincts and their Vicissitudes, Repression, The Uncanny, On Narcissism: an Introduction, On Transience, Mourning and Melancholia, Fetishism, A Note upon the “Mystic Writing-Pad”, Humour, Libidinal Types, Negation – can be gleaned out of insights encountered in the 5 Case Histories. Is the Freudian know-how than a product of praxis?

This Semester shall explore how neuroscience can be integrated into psychoanalytic thinking and practice. It focuses on the biological within the psychological, social and psychopathological phenomena relevant to therapists and analysts. It also revisits the emotional-motivational aspects of the psyche through the lenses of affective neuroscience, psychoanalytic theory and neuro psychoanalysis. The Semester shall build on Adrian Johnston’s four questions: (1) what analysis can both theorize and treat; (2) what analysis cannot theorize but can treat; (3) what analysis can theorize but not treat; and (4) what analysis can neither theorize nor treat.

what might psychoanalytic practice look like if sincere and sustained efforts are made to integrate the many implications flowing from cutting-edge neuroscience research. It will begin by delineating the limits of psychoanalytic practice when it is faced with revelations arising from new scientific investigations of the brain; ignoring the advances of neurobiology perhaps lands the ‘theorist of subjectivity’ in metaphysical dogmatism. It will thereafter ask: can psychoanalysis and neuroscience mutually enrich each other if brought to dialogue and integrated with care; is philosophy the missing link between the two. Both the psychoanalytic and neuroscientific sides of this “hybrid interdisciplinary formation” may have to be dialectically rethought: one needs a neuroscientific psychoanalysis and a psychoanalytic neuroscience. Neither psychoanalysis nor the neurosciences (nor philosophy) can remain unchanged in passing through these unavoidable disciplinary intersections.

All four Semesters shall be a close reflection on the specificity and dynamics of the “analytical bond” as distinguished from other kinds of “social bonds”. Freud’s papers on Technique shall be mined to make sense of the relationship between self-knowledge and self-transformation in the analytic setting.