While most people simply regard dreaming as a strange or wonderful thing, Professor Mark Solms has dedicated his career to understanding the phenomena of dreams within the field of neuroscience.
Solms completed his PhD in neuropsychology at the University of the Witwatersrand, and clinical training at the Institute of Psychoanalysis in London. He worked as an academic at University College London and as a clinician at the Royal London Hospital before returning to South Africa in 2002. He currently holds the Chair in Neuropsychology at the University of Cape Town and does clinical work at Groote Schuur Hospital.
He has spent his life attempting to integrate neuropsychology and psychoanalysis. This is due to his belief that neuropsychology lacked a sufficiently inclusive conceptualisation of the mind, while psychoanalysis lacked sufficiently rigorous scientific methods. He is best known for his discovery of the forebrain mechanisms of dreaming and for his integration of psychoanalytic theories and methods with those of modern neuroscience.
Solms established the Inter-national Neuropsychoanalysis Society in 1999. As a result, neuropsychoanalysis is an established field today with its own journal, recognised research agenda, and community of scholars. It is easy to understand why he takes great pride in being one of the founders of this initiative.
He has published more than 300 articles and book chapters, as well as seven books in neuropsychology, psychoanalysis and the area between the two. He also presented over 500 invited papers at conferences and symposia around the world. He has received 10 honorary appointments and memberships, and has been invited to act as a reviewer for many highly esteemed journals.
He is a member of the British Psychoanalytical Society, president of the South African Psychoanalytical Association, and Research Chair of the International Psychoanalytical Association.
Among his many prizes and honours, Solms was the recipient of the Sigmund Freud Award, Arnold Pfeffer Prize of the New York Psychoanalytic Institute, International Psychiatrist Award, and the George Sarton Medal of the Rijksuniversiteit Gent. He was particularly pleased to receive the Mary Sigourney Award in 2011, considered to be the most prestigious prize in psychoanalysis. He regards this, along with his appointment as chair of the Research Committee of the International Psychoanalytical Association in 2013, as the “coming of age” of neuropsychoanalysis.