Howard Shevrin, PhD, 2003 (1926-2018)
/Dr. Howard Shevrin’s work interdisciplinary and pioneering work explored the territory where neurobiology, thoughts, emotions, and behavior meet. Described by Dr. Robert Wallerstein (The Sigourney Award-1991) as a “pioneering member of an all too small cadre of empirical researchers” in psychoanalysis, Dr. Shevrin’s work has pushed at the boundaries between neuroscience and psychoanalytic disciplines, seeking evidence that Freudian concepts such as the unconscious and repression could be documented through physical measures of brain activity. His work is recognized as having helped form the foundation for a new scientific field now known as Neuropsychoanalysis.
In a 1968 Journal of Science, he published the first report of brain responses to unconscious visual stimuli, providing strong objective evidence for the existence of the unconscious at a time when most scientists were skeptical of Freud’s ideas. In that same study, he showed that unconscious perceptions are processed in different ways from conscious perceptions, a finding consistent with Freud’s views on how the unconscious works. He led a study that suggested a link between repressive personality traits and a longer than average delay between the application of a stimulus and the conscious awareness of that stimulus. Yet another study by Dr. Shevrin and his colleagues found brain markers for unconscious factors at work in producing social phobias. Dr. Shevrin was also the author of over 150 publications, including an award-winning psychoanalytic novel in verse form, The Dream Interpreters.