Aggression, Error and Truth

In the psychoanalytic situation, regardless of the patient's interest in discovering the reasons for his problems, he may suddenly conduct himself in a manner quite contrary to that which one might expect and may completely dissemble—even to the point of lying.

According to Storr (1966), man shares with other animals the same basic impulses, and it is his inability to make use of these impulses which is responsible for many of the disturbances which bring him to the psychoanalyst. He adds that the task of the psychoanalyst should be the interpretation of his patient's behaviour and verbal expressions in such a manner as to relate them appropriately to the primitive biological impulses which he shares with the rest of the animal kingdom—in the hope that the patient, once again in contact with his basic, innate nature, will become capable of discovering better and more suitable modes of impulse expression in his daily life.

On the other hand, Money-Kyrle (1968) points out that in spite of the obstacles to understanding, man has an innate disposition to discover the truth, which, however, suffers distortions and unconscious errors. He adds that a patient's inhibitions are products of disturbances in his conceptions (Bion, 1962).

The triggering factor of disturbances is aggression, which either may arise from the internalized external world or be motivated by internal states such as jealousy or envy. These are psychic conditions resulting from sexual impulses which have been violently affected and thus cannot be freely expressed in accordance with their innate tendency. This is what I term the alienation of the sexual instinct.

Heretofore analysts have cursorily examined the internal conditions linked to unconscious fantasies—principally in relation to objects. External situations and the stimuli which result from them and bombard the internal reality have been studied far less. It is within this context, then, that I would like to attempt a study of the significance