In the Mind Fields: Exploring the New Science of Neuropsychoanalysis

Somewhere along her journey to discover the seemingly opposite worlds of neuroscience and psychoanalysis, a colleague asks Schwartz, "What exactly is your book about?" She is hesitant to answer in that moment, and yet the journalistic tour of her studies gives the reader a definitive picture of just how these disciplines are undeniably joined. Schwartz travels to the Anna Freud Centre in London, learning about the beginnings of Freudian psychoanalysis, before traveling to Africa, Canada, and landing in New Haven, CT, at Yale University to research the happenings in neuroscience. Her story acts almost as a brain travelog, oscillating between a search for understanding and meaning in ever-elusive ephemera and hard science. Her tireless quest results in the argument that moving forward, psychiatry will meld both psychoanalysis and neuroscience to better understand the brain.