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This paper appeared in the journal (Int. J. Psychoanal., 1998, 79: 1071) and was placed on the journal's web-site several weeks in advance of publication. In the paper the authors argue that the abandonment of the theory of trauma in 1897 was a trauma for Freud, who reacted with an over-emphasis on inner fantasies and drive discharge. Today we witness the ‘abandonment of drive theory’, i.e. the notion that human beings strive not primarily to reduce sexual and aggressive drives but rather seek objects, assign meanings, test previous beliefs and assimilate new schemes. The authors argue that the clinical and theoretical insights of psychoanalysis must join with the now available and converging lines of evidence coming from cognitive psychology, neurobiology, evolutionary epistemology, ethology, infant research and psychotherapy research. Although there are dangers in combining disciplines, psychoanalysis cannot postpone its confrontation with other scientific disciplines. Migone & Liotti's paper is a complex one (as is the discussion), and this review is a brief summary only of certain main points.
The authors offer a theory of therapy and mental functioning using language that will be intelligible to various disciplines, from cognitive psychology, to neurobiology and to psychoanalysis. The proposed model involves the reformulation of the psychoanalytic theory of motivation and a revision of the conception of inherited information. They discuss ‘Control-Mastery Theory’ proposed by the San Francisco Psychotherapy Research Group to suggest a conceptualisation of clinical theory in the light of cognitive science, and they cite Edelman's evolutionary neurobiology and ethology.
Freud believed that people inherit residues of the experiences of previous generations, according to Lamarck's ideas. He eventually built a metapsychology in which he came to conceptualise a dual theory of drives (life and death, or Eros and aggression). Corrections to the concept of drives were made