Psychoanalysis and Ethology1

The keynote of the discussion was struck by Max Schur, in his opening remarks: Why should psychoanalysts be interested in ethology? First, he said, psychoanalysis is a general psychology. It reaches out into many disciplines and often catalyzes them. Second, both psychoanalysis and ethology are developmental psychologies—developmental in ontogenetic and phylogenetic senses. Both are concerned with studying the ontogenetic and phylogenetic evolution of behavior patterns. Schur proposed that the term "instinctual" be applied only to the concept of instinctual drive as used in psychoanalytic theory, and that, for the sake of clarity, the term "instinctive" be used to refer to the ethologic concept of instinct.

The first prepared paper, "The Study of Animal Behavior in Relation to Psychoanalysis, " was given by Charles W. Tidd. He deplored the fact that the many similarities and parallels between animal and human behavior, and the striking relation between analytic and ethologic theories have seduced many analysts into forming hasty conclusions. It is important to distinguish between mere analogy and true homology. This caution was repeated by other speakers too.

Tidd proceeded to review briefly the symposium on ethology which took place at the 1959 Congress of the International Psychoanalytic Association in Copenhagen. There were three principal speakers. John Bowlby proposed that in the human mother-child relation, the child's tie to the mother can be better understood in terms of a reciprocal social relationship founded on instinctive response systems in the infant, such as clinging and following, than by the common view that the tie is secondary to the mother's providing food and care for the child. (See J. Bowlby: The Child's Tie to his Mother. Int. J. Psychoanal., 39: 350-373, 1958.—M.O.) It was Tidd's opinion that there was not sufficient evidence to abandon the concept of orality as being of paramount importance. The second speaker in Copenhagen wa