Mark Solms and drive theory

Over the weekend, I was “at” a NYPSI-sponsored talk by Mark Solms. If you haven’t heard him, or read him, you should. He’s incredibly compelling, very accessible, and kind of revolutionary. Two years ago, he published an influential, provocative, controversial article in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association called “Revision of Drive Theory.” Here’s a link to the paper. This talk was a sort of overview of that. I attach a couple of things, for your interest.

1) My notes from the lecture. 

2) A very brief two-paragraph summary of the notes that I made with the help of ChatGPT and Claude (I asked them to summarize my notes, in two paragraphs, combined what the two came up with, asked ChatGPT to distill it down and reorganize it, and then I edited very lightly – much more lightly than I would if I were doing anything other than this):

Mark Solms revises Freud’s drive theory, proposing seven categories of drives tied to specific emotions and brain regions: rage, fear, lust, seeking, panic/grief, care, and play. Contrary to Freud, he argues that the id and drives are conscious, and that feelings signal the need for homeostasis. Therapists should focus on helping patients realize that their current actions aren’t satisfying their emotional needs, rather than trying to bring repressed wishes to consciousness.

Solms critiques Freud’s concept of an unconscious id and the sexualization of all drives. In therapy, he emphasizes the role of transference as the manifestation of early-life, unconscious predictions. The goal is to help patients become aware of their ineffective behaviors to better meet their emotional needs. Solms also argues that attachment, not pleasure-seeking, is the primal addiction, providing a basis for free association in therapeutic practice.

3) A table that shows his classification of the drives, based on Jaak Panksepp‘s seven emotional systems.

My head’s been spinning a bit since Sunday, as I try to figure out how to integrate what of his thinking into mine, and into my practice. I’m (re?)reading the article, and I just bought his book, The Hidden Spring, which I can’t wait to read.