Neuroaesthetics and Psychoanalysis

This book looks at the fundamental question of why we take pleasure in art through a relatively new perspective of neuroaesthetics and explores the close links between cognitive and affective processes used in understanding art and science. Drawing on the new and rapidly developing school of neuroaesthetics, the author explores the meaning of mind in the context of both creation and viewing. She considers the meaning of the affective experience of color and form, as well as the meaning of "modern" and its aftermath, all within the context of pleasure and its source. This book further enframes the pleasure of aesthetic experience in the embodiment of mind defined by the concept of drive. It is an exploration of how the mind becomes what it is, its comprehensive relation to the neuroperceptual, to feeling, to ambiguity and uncertainty that allows for an understanding of what would more tellingly be termed 'neuropsychoaesthetics'. With insights drawn from the latest neuroscientific findings and a deep understanding of both artistic and scientific thinking, this is key reading for psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and anyone wanting to understand the human mind better.

Lois Oppenheim is Professor Emerita at Montclair State University, where she was named University Distinguished Scholar, and on the faculty of the New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute. She has previously authored or edited fifteen books, including Imagination from Fantasy to Delusion which was awarded the Courage to Dream Prize from the American Psychoanalytic Association.

1. "Becoming Mind" 2. Beyond "Beyond the Pleasure Principle" 3. Curiosity and the Crisis of Uncertainty 4. The Imageless Image 5. Post Postmodernism 6. Conclusion: The Devalorization of the Intellectual in the 21st Century