Project - year 1

Prof. Mark Solms (born 17 July 1961) is a South African psychoanalyst and neuropsychologist, who is known for his discovery of the brain mechanisms of dreaming and his use of psychoanalytic methods in contemporary neuroscience. He holds the Chair of Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and Groote Schuur Hospital (Departments of Psychology and Neurology) and is the President of the South African Psychoanalytical Association. He is also the former Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association (since 2013).

Solms founded the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 2000 and he was a Founding Editor (with Ed Nersessian) of the journal Neuropsychoanalysis. He is Director of the Arnold Pfeffer Center for Neuropsychoanalysis at the New York Psychoanalytic Institute.[2] He is also Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Foundation in New York, a Trustee of the Neuropsychoanalysis Fund in London, and Director of the Neuropsychoanalysis Trust in Cape Town. He is a trustee of the Loudoun Trust.

He has published widely in both neuroscientific and psychoanalytic journals, including Cortex (journal), Neuropsychologia, Trends in Cognitive Sciences and Behavioral and Brain Sciences. He is also frequently published in general-interest journals, such as Scientific American . He has published more than 250 articles and book chapters, and 6 books. His second book, The Neuropsychology of Dreams (1997), was a landmark contribution to the field. His 2002 book (with Oliver Turnbull), The Brain and the Inner World was a best-seller and has been translated into 13 languages. His latest book, on the hard problem of consciousness, is entitled The Hidden Spring. He is the authorised editor and translator of the forthcoming Revised Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud (24 vols) and the Complete Neuroscientific Works of Sigmund Freud (4 vols).

Dr. Irith Barzel-Raveh is a Senior Clinical Psychologist and supervisor in Psychotherapy. She is the Founder and Chairwoman of the Israeli Neuropsychoanalytic Society, and a founder member and a Board member of the International Neuropsychoanalysis Society. She coordinated the course “Normalcy in Infancy” at the Tel Aviv University Medical School. She taught Infant Observation in collaboration with Tavistock to a range of professionals from multiple disciplines. She was a head clinical psychologist of the Neuropediatric infant development center for the Tel-Aviv area and was head of 26 well-baby transdisciplinary clinics. She is a specialist in Professor Heinz Prechtel’s method of functional assessment of fetus General Movement (functional assessment of the brain). She is enrolled in a Ph.D. program in Psychoanalysis and Hermeneutics at Bar-Ilan University, where she is working on her dissertation under the guidance of Dr. Aner Govrin and Professor Mark Solms. She also works at her private clinic.