Freud noted many years ago (1917/1963, 1933/1964) that the talking cure was developed due to the rather primitive nature of neuroscientific knowledge with regard to the brain and hence might eventually be made unnecessary or irrelevant by subsequent discoveries of the neuropsychological causation of neurotic symptoms. The opposite may be true, however. These discoveries may validate the potential effectiveness of therapeutic work with a wide variety of difficult personality disorders and addictive forms of pathology. The recent work of neuroscientists such as Barkley, Davidson, Goldberg, Schore and Volkow and Fowler may allow for empirical demonstrations of benign changes in brain functions following an effective course of treatment.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.