You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
In previous papers introducting another perspective on the psychoanalytic theory of aggression (Buie et al., 1983; Meissner et al., 1987), our study group on aggression presented what we felt was a more authentically psychoanalytic and more purely motivational understanding of aggression that suited the findings on and the vicissitudes of it as manifested in the psychoanalytic process.
The essential elements of that understanding can be summarized as follows:
Aggression is not simply a biologically based drive in a constant state of activity or discharge, but a biologically rooted drive capacity that requires appropriate stimulus conditions to elicit activation or response.
This view of aggression clearly diverges from the classical drive notion. The difference is clear in the developmental context: drive theory would see the development of aggression as a process in which the mental apparatus strives to integrate the aggressive drive derivatives impinging on it from below, i.e., from an innate biologically given drive; our motivational theory would see the development in aggression as reflecting the organism's experience of dealing with and overcoming obstacles in the course of which drive potentialities or capacities are activated and integrated. Aggression is thus a given capacity that comes into play only under
Dr. Meissner is Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychiatric Institute; and University Professor of Psychoanalysis, Boston College.
appropriate stimulus or motivational conditions. Aggression is thus less of a biological force, and becomes more a psychological construct related to and reactive to specifiable stimulus conditions, including relationships with objects. The emphasis shifts from the biological determinants to the motivational context of aggressive action. The biological substrate remains intact, but is no longer the important determining element.
The motivational (as opposed to drive-discharge) aspect of this model of aggression ari