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The Integration of Behavior, first of five volumes, delineates the elementary components of rational behavior, neuroses and dreams. The vantage point of psychoanalytic reasoning is augmented here through an examination of learning theories drawn from Gestalt and behavioristic psychology. Behavior, as determined by permanent constellations of reaction patterns and immediate stimuli, serve to elicit responses which are invariably goal-directed.
This somewhat common-sense starting point provides a theoretical framework into which Dr. French fits a clinical analysis of a case report. Purposive behavior in the matrix of wishes, neuroses, dreams, hopes—and the loss of hope as a determinant of frustration—can all be accounted for in terms of an interaction between biological needs and functional activity. Neutralization of pressures arising from healthy functional activity finds release in physiological absorption. Such absorption occurs not only in motor discharge, but in dreams also, and as such, becomes amenable to psychoanalytic treatment. Finally, the study of psychoanalytic treatment by the author tends to illuminate the disintergrating effects of conflict as well as serving to reveal normal, integrating patterns under favoring circumstances.