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Tidd discusses some of the areas of contact between ethology and psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysts are interested in the field because of the theory of instincts supplied by the ethologists which in many respects parallels the psychoanalytic theories. A brief summary of some papers by analysts who attempt to apply ethological concepts to their clinical observations is given.
Bowlby reviews the first hydrodynamic theory of Lorenz that an instinctual response is conceived as becoming active when a sufficient quantity of reaction-specific energy has accumulated. This is similar to Freud's instinct theory. The present concept of Lorenz is that of a response system which is activated by one complex mechanism that considers both internal and external stimuli and is switched off by another similar mechanism. Bowlby discusses how the concepts of attachment and response elucidated by the ethologists have led to his own ideas of the importance of clinging and following in the maturation of the infant.
Kaufman describes the related concepts of instinctual drive and energy, central in the theories of both ethology and psychoanalysis. The work of the ethologists suggests that there are no unitary drives but that there are discrete, instinctual patterns existing in a hierarchy of importance, that these develop in a maturational sequence, and that they are integrated and modified by learning. In these concepts libidinal drives are seen as secondarily acquired and are based on the processes underlying sexual excitation.