Dr. Linda A.W. Brakel is an Adjunct Associate Professor in Psychiatry at the University of Michigan Medical School, where she is Co-Associate Director of the Hunt Memorial Laboratory for Research on Subliminal Processes. She is also Research Associate in the Philosophy Department at the University of Michigan, and a practising psychoanalyst, on the faculty of the Michigan Psychoanalytic Institute. In all of these roles she has had a close acquaintance with psychoanalytic data - data revealing mental phenomena best described as unconscious and a-rational or irrational. For Brakel, these non-rational and non-conscious mental phenomena require empirical investigation and a serious philosophical account. Brakel has thereby done empirical and philosophical work on 'primary process' mentation, a form of thinking different from rational thought. These works have appeared in various academic venues, including psychoanalytic, psychological, and philosophical journals.
