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Freud, Darwin, and the Holding Environment

Freud, Darwin, and the Holding Environment Freud's hypothesis of the neonate, derived from the data of adult psychoneurotic patients, was of a supremely narcissistic being who lived in a dreamlike state of hallucinatory satisfaction. A corollary hypothesis was that the neonate's drive to attach was learned and emerged only after the failure of wish fulfillment. These hypotheses provided the ground for Freud's theories of regression, dream, primary process, and pleasure principle. Darwin's data of the neonate, collected from his observations of a variety of mammals, led him to the conclusion that attachment in mammals is innate. Until 1969 and the work of John Bowlby, psychoanalytic thinking faithfully followed Freud. If psychoanalysis is to survive, then it must attach itself to data and discard any theories that are based on unproveable hypotheses, even if those hypotheses are Freud's. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis & Dynamic Psychiatry Guilford Press

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References (12)

Publisher
Guilford Press
Copyright
© The American Academy of Psychoanalysis and Dynamic Psychiatry
ISSN
1546-0371
DOI
10.1521/jaap.2007.35.1.127
pmid
17480194
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

Freud's hypothesis of the neonate, derived from the data of adult psychoneurotic patients, was of a supremely narcissistic being who lived in a dreamlike state of hallucinatory satisfaction. A corollary hypothesis was that the neonate's drive to attach was learned and emerged only after the failure of wish fulfillment. These hypotheses provided the ground for Freud's theories of regression, dream, primary process, and pleasure principle. Darwin's data of the neonate, collected from his observations of a variety of mammals, led him to the conclusion that attachment in mammals is innate. Until 1969 and the work of John Bowlby, psychoanalytic thinking faithfully followed Freud. If psychoanalysis is to survive, then it must attach itself to data and discard any theories that are based on unproveable hypotheses, even if those hypotheses are Freud's.

Journal

Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis & Dynamic PsychiatryGuilford Press

Published: Mar 1, 2007

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