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December 20, 1955. A CONTRIBUTION TO THE THEORY OF INSTINCTS: I. THE EROTIC INSTINCT. Mortimer Ostow, M.D.
Dr. Ostow seeks to integrate the psychoanalytic theory of the erotic instincts with the data of current ethological research, and to amplify Freud's observations and hypotheses as published in 1905. As Freud states, psychic energy (libido) is made available by the action of the sexual hormones upon the central nervous system, and among humans, after puberty, there is no reason to attribute fluctuations in the intensity of the sexual drive to alterations in the hormonal content of the blood. The psychoanalytic assumption that in the human adult psychic derivatives of the sexual instinctual drives fluctuate primarily in response to psychic forces has not been shown to require revision.