Meeting of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

December 14, 1965. PSYCHOANALYSIS: AN EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGICAL APPROACH. Part I: Some Fundamental Difficulties in Current Psychoanalytic Theory. Emanuel Peterfreud, M.D. Part II: Psychological Phenomena and the Nature of Biological Order. Emanuel Peterfreund, M.D. and Jacob T. Schwartz, Ph.D.

Dr. Peterfreund outlined a biological theory to provide a more scientific explanation for psychoanalytic observations than does current metapsychology. In his theory, psychological data are epiphenomena of physical structure and function, and integration of psychoanalysis with the physical sciences will provide explanations where there are now none. However, to achieve this integration it is necessary to discard libido theory and psychic-energy concepts.

In Part I, the author contends that the concept of psychic energy derives from a physical concept of the science of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, before the laws of thermodynamics had been discovered. He then contrasts it with twentieth century concepts of physical energy, which are definable as the capacity to work, are quantifiable, and obey the law of conservation. In developing his thesis, he notes that the concept of ego was likewise vitalistic and anthropomorphic. The ego is often spoken of in the literature as 'recognizing', 'knowing', and 'judging', and its biological functions include the control of perception and motility. No scientific explanation is provided to account for its mode of action or control of the body. Both psychic energy and its organizing agency, the ego, are by definition specifically excluded from biological structure and hence cannot affect it. The author suggests other areas where psychoanalytic theory has failed. There is no adequate theory of affect or sexuality because soma is overlooked, no theory of structure formation or learning, and none of the therapeutic process itself. Indeed, psychoanalysis, as a theory, is isolated from the physical sciences and no