Research Associate
About
Dr. Brakel is an Adjunct Associate Professor in the UM Department of Psychiatry, where she has been Co-Associate Director of the Hunt Memorial Laboratory for research on Subliminal Processes, and she is a Psychoanalyst. As such, she has had close acquaintance with psychoanalytic data-- data revealing mental phenomena best described as unconscious and a-rational or irrational. These non-rational and non-conscious mental phenomena call out for empirical investigations and a serious philosophical account. Brakel has done empirical and philosophical studies both on unconscious processes and on "primary process" mentation, a form of thinking different from our ordinary rational thought. Her philosophical work on these topics features two recent Oxford University Press books: Philosophy, Psychoanalysis, and the A-Rational Mind (2009) and Unconscious Knowing and Other Essays in Psycho-Philosophical Analysis (2010); and one Routledge Press book: The Ontology of Psychology (2013).
Affiliation(s)
- Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Medical School
Field(s) of Study
- Psychoanalytic Theory, Philosophy of Mind, Philosophy of Action, Epistemology