Psychoanalysis and neurological medicine have promoted contrasting and seemingly irreconcilable notions of the modern self. Since Freud, psychoanalysts have relied on the spoken word in a therapeutic practice that has revolutionized our understanding of the mind. Neurologists and neurosurgeons, meanwhile, have used material apparatus—the scalpel, the electrode—to probe the workings of the nervous system, and in so doing have radically reshaped our understanding of the brain. Both operate in vastly different institutional and cultural contexts. Given these differences, it is remarkable that both fields found resources for their development in the same tradition of late nineteenth-century German medicine: neuropsychiatry. In Localization and Its Discontents, Katja Guenther investigates the significance of this common history, drawing on extensive archival research in seven countries, institutional analysis, and close examination of the practical conditions of scientific and clinical work. Her remarkable accomplishment not only reframes the history of psychoanalysis and the neuro disciplines, but also offers us new ways of thinking about their future.
Katja Guenther is assistant professor of the history of science at Princeton University. She lives in Princeton, New Jersey.
Table of Contents
Introduction Chapter 1. In the Morgue: Theodor Meynert, Pathological Anatomy, and the Social Structure of Dissection Chapter 2. In the Lecture Theater: Reflex and Diagnosis in Carl Wernicke’s Krankenvorstellungen Chapter 3. On the Couch: Sigmund Freud, Reflex Therapy, and the Beginnings of Psychoanalysis Chapter 4. In the Exercise Hall: Otfrid Foerster, Neurological Gymnastics, and the Surgery of Motor Function Chapter 5. Between Hospital and Psychoanalytic Setting: Paul Schilder and American Psychiatry, or How to Do Psychoanalysis without the Unconscious Chapter 6. In the Operating Room: Wilder Penfield’s Stimulation Reports and the Discovery of “Mind” Epilogue Acknowledgments Notes Bibliography Index
