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The authors are psychiatrists and read Psychology, Philosophy and Physiology at Oxford, John Price and Anthony Stevens . There they were influenced by the ethnologist Niko Tinburgen and they use his analysis of behaviour as their central organizing principle. The four questions derived from Tinburgen are: what is the function of the behaviour (symptom), what causes the behaviour, how did it develop in the particular individual and what is its evolutionary history. Price and Stevens state that evolutionary psychiatry is a branch of behavioural ecology and claim that their theory is a major paradigm shift from the medical model. Human nature is defined in terms of evolutionary origins and developmental needs. The second edition addresses some of the criticisms the book received. It introduces a new rank theory of depression, additional chapters on paedophilia, research and a revised chapter on the group splitting hypothesis of schizophrenia. This book is pure brain aerobics and takes the reader through an erudite and heady mixture of fact and speculation. The authors dip into neuroscience, biology, physiology, psychology and anthropology, all within the psychiatric framework of the ICD-10. Their main tenet is the phylogenetic foundation of all human behaviour housed in the three parts of the brain, the reptilian, paleo-mammal and neo-mammal sub-brains. Psychiatric symptoms are manifestations of primordial adaptive strategies. Stevens and Price set themselves the ambitious task of procuring a marriage between hermeneutics and science.
The biological basis of attachment is familiar and easy to follow and likewise the phylogenetic link in dreams. Nightmares about being pursued and attacked reflect primordial themes of hunting, fighting and dominance. The authors point out that Jung was ahead of his time and that his theory of inwired archetypes heralded developments in modern neuroscience. They refute the computer models that hold that dreams are mere ‘off line time’ or