Research article summary:

The human mind: building bridges between neuroscience and psychiatry.

Abstract Extract:
This essay proposes the existence of four unique behavioral characteristics that distinguish Homo sapiens from its nearest evolutionary kin, the great apes. These are inventiveness, capacity for language, curiosity, and self-reflection or self-analysis. ... (Full abstract text below)

Published 2003 in Journal: Psychiatry (Language : eng)

Full Pubmed Extract

This information was retrieved, real-time, on your behalf from the public area of the Pubmed website:

1. Psychiatry. 2003 ;66(1):22-31

The human mind: building bridges between neuroscience and psychiatry.

Strumwasser F

Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA.

This essay proposes the existence of four unique behavioral characteristics that distinguish Homo sapiens from its nearest evolutionary kin, the great apes. These are inventiveness, capacity for language, curiosity, and self-reflection or self-analysis. Some would counterargue that none of these features are "unique" to humans. Examples would be given of animal "intelligence" involving at times surprising problem-solving abilities. Even "conversations" between humans and parrots might be cited. However, this is to misunderstand what the focus is in the article. This is not a thesis on the continuity or discontinuities of evolution. Every well-trained biologist learns about evolution and understands that the most complex human traits have some hint of related traits in nearest relatives. Rather, the emphasis of this article has been to select and emphasize certain distinctive aspects of human behavior that are the most important features distinguishing human "uniqueness." Uniqueness may be quantified by the number and complexity of processes within the four attributes presented in this article. While this may be an interesting mathematical exercise, the author would rather take it for granted that the outcome would be that humans are significantly more complex in each of the four features referred to than the great apes. For those in the mental health field, one would hope that this overview of the most highly evolved systems in human brain may provide a useful framework where creative therapeutic processes can be applied to the ultimate beneficiary, the client or patient. This article proposes that psychosis can be considered the impossibility of conflict resolution among the special neuronal assemblies that separately mediate feelings of attachment versus abandonment, security versus anxiety, calmness versus anger, fulfillment versus helplessness, and satisfaction of sexual needs. Given this model, the role of the therapist is to consider whether the client is in touch with the various equilibrium points in their current life situation or crisis. A questionnaire designed to help access information on these internal states may work better than an oral interview because it forces the client to reflect. How much conflict does the client feel in sorting out personal priorities? Does the client have any practice at resolving internal conflicts? If unpracticed, is the client likely to act out in destructive ways to self or others to resolve the pressure of internal conflicts? I am sure that we can all think of current well-publicized destructive acts in which one has to wonder precisely what model of mind the psychotherapists were using to assist the client. At a higher level, each human has the potential to be creative. Whether expressed as curiosity about the universe and nature or inventiveness, as in improving the quality of one's life or by the use of gifted language as in art and music, the therapist needs to determine how to assist the client into these kinds of self-defined fulfillments, which one hopes will reduce the other tensions of conflict resolution. There is no doubt that the journey for both the client and therapist will be challenging. Ultimately, the journey is the reward for both the client and therapist. In closing, the following quotation seems appropriate. Sydney Brenner (2002), a pioneer in molecular biology, reviewed a current book on the Science, Politics, and Ethics of the Human Genome Project (Sulston and Ferry 2002). He states, "What I found interesting in the account is that Sulston doesn't tell us anything about the genomes he has sequenced. What did he find there that excited him? What did he learn about genes, about life, about evolution, about worlds to come? It is the play of Hamlet without Hamlet" (p. 794).

PMID : 12710227 [PubMed - Indexed for MEDLINE]

This information is obtained from the National Library of Medicine (NLM). Abstract text and other information may be subject to copyright. Type "NLM copyright" into Google for more information.

Full Author Information

First Name	LastName	Initials
Felix	Strumwasser	F

Affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, Bethesda, MD, USA.

3rd Party provider links

Click the links below to go to related 3rd party information:

MESH categories and related page links

This article was linked to the MESH categories shown on the left below. The links on the right are related Memletics pages.

Links for this article

For links to places where you can get the full text of this article see links. Note there may be a subscription or fee required for access to the full text.

New! Using similar technology to this site, we have launched find-health-articles.com, targeting over 1 million health research article abstracts.

Here are some articles related to this one (by title keywords):

US public universities compliance with recommended tobacco-control policies.

A simulating cognitive system with adaptive capability.

The roles of body and mind in abstract thought.

These regional hospitals use reports to broaden awareness. Both winners benefit from highly creative designs.

Show me the features! Understanding recognition from the use of visual information.

Informed consent and the capacity for voluntarism.

Inclusiveness and crossed categorization: effects on co-joined category evaluations of in-group and out-group primes.

A contingent speech technique in eye movement research on reading.

Centric-minded templates for self-motion perception.

Burning bridges: policy, practice, and the destruction of midwifery in rural Costa Rica.

>>> Get more research article abstracts like these, or browse abstracts.

Keywords in this article:

abandonment, abilities, access, acts, analysis, anger, animal, anxiety, apes, applied, appropriate, article, aspects, assemblies, assist, attachment, attributes, author, behavioral, beneficiary, better, biologist, biology, brain, brenner, calmness, capacity, certain, challenging, characteristics, cited, client, closing, complex, complexity, conflict, conflicts, considered, continuity, conversations, counterargue, creative, crisis, curiosity, current, defined, designed, destructive, determine, discontinuities, distinctive, distinguish, distinguishing, doubt, emphasis, emphasize, equilibrium, essay, even, every, evolutionary, evolved, examples, exercise, existence, expressed, features, feelings, field, focus, following, forces, four, framework, fulfillment, fulfillments, gifted, given, granted, great, health, helplessness, higher, highly, hint, homo, hope, hopes, humans, important, impossibility, improving, information, intelligence, interesting, internal, interview, inventiveness, involving, journey, kin, kinds, language, learns, level, life, likely, mathematical, mediate, mental, mind, misunderstand, model, molecular, more, much, music, nature, nearest, needs, neuronal, none, not, number, others, outcome, overview, parrots, patient, personal, pioneer, points, potential, practice, precisely, presented, pressure, priorities, problem, processes, proposes, provide, psychosis, psychotherapists, publicized, quality, quantified, questionnaire, quotation, reduce, referred, reflection, related, relatives, resolution, resolve, resolving, reviewed, reward, role, sapiens, satisfaction, security, seems, select, self, separately, sexual, situation, solving, sorting, special, states, surprising, sydney, systems, take, tensions, therapeutic, therapist, thesis, think, times, touch, trained, traits, ultimate, ultimately, understands, unique, uniqueness, universe, unpracticed, useful, versus, ways, well, where, whether, will, wonder

Also, see our new free speed reading online course (beta version)