February 2020 “Contributions of Neuroscience to Intuition” with Maxine Anderson, MD

In this presentation Maxine Anderson proposes that neuroscience considerations are significant for our understanding of intuition. She outlines how the right brain and autonomic nervous system may usefully be thought of as major contributors to our intuitive capacities. One consideration is the wisdom of the ancient right brain and its ‘view of the world’ as spacious, wide-ranging, unconscious, integrative, and embracing of uncertainty and paradox. Right brain functions foster unconscious-to-unconscious communication often described as projective identification. This part of the brain also registers implicit memory as noted in transference phenomena. Finally, right brain registration of inner space fosters patience, compassion, and the wider view. Its integrative role may be akin to what Bion terms ‘common sense’. Another consideration is the autonomic nervous system, which neuro-psychoanalyst Mark Solms suggests monitors and regulates affects, fostering harmony of the bodily self. This quiet, yet vital, system is easily overlooked in terms of the role it plays in shaping subjectivity. As this inner monitoring system down-regulates emerging affects, its sensitivity to disruptions in well-being illustrates how we initially need to ‘feel our way’ through the unknown regions of internal and external reality.