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DISCUSSION: Many of the discussants were not convinced that the historical survey did establish that vitalism and Freud's concept of psychic energy are related. While there are similarities, there are greater fundamental differences.
Dr. Bernard Brodsky felt that the author overstated the assumed role of psychic energy in the instinct theory, and questioned Holt's statements concerning the drive energy and the direction of drives. Dr. Burness Moore took issue with the linking of psychoanalytic theory to vitalism, and referring to psychoanalysis as a mixture of mechanism and vitalism.
Dr. Charles Fisher commented that Holt falls into the same error for which he criticizes Freud: he speaks as if the nervous system is a passive conductor of the energy that is put into it, disregarding the possibility that it can generate its own energy. Fisher cited the experiments of Olds and Milner, and Heath, which suggest that a tiny electric current can activate a drive state that in turn may involve massive energy changes.
Referring to Holt's hope for an ultimate general theory based on measurable