A Dual Mind Approach to Understanding the Conscious Self and Its Treatment

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Schiffer Manuscript Review

The manuscript introduces a dual consciousness framework based on two minds associated with each brain hemisphere. The author talks about psychopathological treatment in patients without callosotomy or hemispherectomy. Results show that these patients exhibit different experiences out of different lateral fields and that these different experiences associate with distinct cortical hemispheres proven with fMRI studies.

The dual consciousness theory is not well accepted by neuroscience mainly because the author’s work is on the nonconscious Self. Neuroscience is mostly conscious experience through conscious cognition or correlates of consciousness.  I, therefore, agree with the contention of the dual-mind model that the author proposes.  I, therefore, recommend the publication of the manuscript provided the following be taken into consideration to the best ability of the author:

1. The author refers to “dual-brain psychology”. It is better to change that to “dual-mind model” or “dual consciousness framework.”

2.The dual-mind model has some connotation with Freudian metapsychology. Perhaps an explanation of the two approaches can be included.

3. The title of the manuscript is too long. For example, a more concise title is needed, “A Novel Approach to Understanding the Nonconscious Self.”
4. The abstract needs to be self-contained. Do not include “Dr. Sonne’s questions” but simply state what the questions are. What is DBP?
5. Include a reference to the “Two-brains hypothesis”, Goodman et al. Journal of Integrative Neuroscience. Is there any possible linkage to what the author presents?

6.The Discussion needs polishing:

 (i) Each hemisphere has different information called “brain information.”  This is true, but call it non-integrated information instead of brain information.

 (ii) Conscious experience “sits upon” nonconscious experiences is another term for supervenes. Is this right?  Perhaps the author means that conscious experience is a correlate of nonconscious experience?

 (iii) Define “immature” and “dominance” of hemispheres in terms of “brain information”.

(iv) The notion of a biophoton field that activates information to be sentience needs a secondary reference apart from the author’s work. A suggestion is Cacha and Poznanski's (2014) Journal of Integrative Neuroscience. Although the biophoton field hypothesis is possible, the author should also mention that molecular bonds will break in molecules. Such covalent modifications can be another possible explanation for physical action in the brain via self-reference.

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The author present an interesting paper discussing his theory based on clinical experience and previous research. A significant proportion of the conclusions are speculative, but I think this is suitable for this kind of paper. I have some minor suggestions I believe would improve the manuscript.

1. It is not clear to me what are the "Dr Sonne's questions". I believe they should be more clearly stated so a reader who is interested only on this paper could understand the context better.
2. In the abstract, please include DBP right after the first time Dual-brain Psychology is written.
3. There is a very known reason why rTMS for depression is applied to the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, based on the observed imbalance of the hemispheres activity in the depressive patients. The author can discuss the limitations of the imbalance theory and present an alternative to it. However, it is not correct to say that rTMS is applied to the left side "for unknow reasons". Also, rTMS for depression is applied mostly, but not only to the left side. Low frequency rTMS to the right side is also a possible treatment for depression.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf