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PubMedDate not supplied

Pavlov's conceptualization of unconditional reflexes, or instincts, within the framework of the theory of higher nervous activity.

According to I. P. Pavlov's theory of higher nervous activity, the establishment and dissolution of conditional reflexes enhances the higher organism's adaptation to the external environment. Pavlov asserted that, ontogenetically, conditional reflexes are based upon innate, unconditional reflexes (UR) or instincts. Pavlov did not distinguish between URs and instincts, but he preferred the former term. Phylogenetically the URs emerged out of well-established conditional reflexes during the development of higher organisms. An outgrowth of the experimental conditioning procedure, developed during the second decade of this century, was the observation and delineation of new URs. While studying human nervous and psychiatric disorders in the 1930s, Pavlov elucidated other URs. Pavlov identified 13 major URs, but he failed to formulate an exhaustive classification scheme of URs.

Animals↗

PubMed1989

The death instinct and the future of humans.

Freud's notion of the "death instinct" has been conceived of by many subsequent authors in many ways. One of the misuses of it is as an excuse for passivity in the face of the current crisis in human affairs. This paper reviews the "death instinct" concept and attempts to understand the disavowal of the dangers to our species and our planet on the basis of our current narcissistic cultural orientation. It examines the use of praxis by a variety of continental thinkers to counter this disavowal and emphasizes the obligation of all mental health professionals to participate, through direct action and through educational contributions, in the elimination of these evils.

Aggression↗

PubMed1983

Is child abuse a human instinct?

The modern concept of instinct maintains that certain physical signs or events trigger the release of appropriate behavioural responses. According to Konrad Lorenz and other ethological theorists, the features and proportions of the infant body and face convey a sense of cuteness which releases a protective human instinct. Members of the Lorenz-Tinbergen school may also regard violent crime or war as manifestations of aggressive drives. A survey of medical and sociological literature shows that the rate of abuse and neglect of infants and children is higher than violent crimes against adults, which reveals a contradiction in basic premises.

Adolescent↗

PubMed2000

Some views on the manifestation of the death instinct in clinical work.

The author argues that the postulation of the instinctual drive towards death can be seen as an attempt to account for the manifestation of a destructive psychological force that is palpably present in many of our patients. He discusses some of the experiences, activities and aims that reflect this destructive psychic force, and the conscious and unconscious gratification that is intrinsically bound up with it. What is 'deadly' is the way in which meaning, specificity and differences are attacked, and any developmental processes retarded or undermined. The vitality is taken out of the patient himself as well as his objects, and although in an important sense these drives are 'anti-life', the author suggests that their aim is not literally to kill or to annihilate, but that the patient feels compelled to maintain a link with the object that often has an evidently tormenting quality. Using a detailed clinical illustration, the author argues that the gratification that is bound up in these activities, and which gives them such a compulsive quality, does not result from fusion with the life instinct, with the resultant libidinisation of the death instinct. On the contrary, the gratification obtained from attacking, spoiling and undermining, whether directed to the self or the object, is an essential element of such a destructive drive.

Adult↗

PubMed1981

Narcissism and the death instinct.

The myth of Narcissus is a myth of death resulting from the absence of desire in a love relationship, and a metaphor of the symbolic and imaginary death of the narcissistic person. Four of Freud's dreams are analysed in terms of their narcissistic structure. They reveal some important features in the implicit relationship between the feminine nature of the narcissistic body and the counterpart. They lead to a better formulation of the narcissistic state in terms of the relationship between the self and the counterpart. The narcissistic relationship is based on wishes and not desires. The object of the wish is not essential for the wish to emerge or to be sustained. As a result, the narcissistic relation is characterized by the absence of its aim and the impossibility of its satisfaction; and consequently it symbolizes death of the world or the self and is an imaginary death of both. In that sense, Freud's introduction of the concept of narcissism and his concept of the death instinct should be seen as connected, as they constitute a stage in psychoanalytic knowledge. It is difficult to understand narcissism detached from the concept of the death instinct without rendering the issues of meaning and interpretation irrelevant to the psychoanalytic act.

Death↗

PubMed1985

Unilateral hemispheric injury and ipsilateral instinctive grasp reaction.

Development of pathological grasping in the hand ipsilateral to a focal cerebral lesion was studied in 100 consecutive patients with unilateral hemispheric lesions caused by recent stroke. Thirteen of 45 patients with right-hemispheric damage (29%) but only two of 55 patients with left-hemispheric damage (4%) showed pathological grasping. The ipsilateral grasping was of the nature of an instinctive grasp reaction. Lesion sites in the patients with this ipsilateral instinctive grasp reaction (IIGR) were in either the perisylvian region or the subcortical region. The IIGR was highly correlated with various right-hemispheric behavioral syndromes. These results suggest that the IIGR is another of the right-hemispheric behavioral syndromes and that the basis of this sign is a disturbance of selective attention. The preponderance of right-sided IIGR may reflect the right hemisphere's dominance for attention and the greater tendency in man to explore the right side of space.

Aged↗

PubMed2005

Counterfactual thinking and the first instinct fallacy.

Most people believe that they should avoid changing their answer when taking multiple-choice tests. Virtually all research on this topic, however, has suggested that this strategy is ill-founded: Most answer changes are from incorrect to correct, and people who change their answers usually improve their test scores. Why do people believe in this strategy if the data so strongly refute it? The authors argue that the belief is in part a product of counterfactual thinking. Changing an answer when one should have stuck with one's original answer leads to more "if only . . ." self-recriminations than does sticking with one's first instinct when one should have switched. As a consequence, instances of the former are more memorable than instances of the latter. This differential availability provides individuals with compelling (albeit illusory) personal evidence for the wisdom of always following their 1st instinct, with suboptimal test scores the result.

Adult↗

PubMed2001

Vesaas's The Birds and a patient's history elucidated by means of the theory of object relations and the death instinct.

The psychoanalytical theories of object relations may elucidate both patient histories and fictional characters in literature. In this article I apply the notions of paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, projective identification, symbolization, communication, and death and life instincts in my understanding of the main character Mattis in Vesaas's The Birds and, furthermore, in referring to one of my patients. Some literary theory is compared with the theoretical issues mentioned above. Comparing Mattis and my patient, I find both differences and similarities. The two men are both disabled, albeit to different extents, and they are quite aware of this. To be observant of suicidality in these patients seems important to me as a clinician, and I find the theory of the death instinct valuable in evaluations concerning these matters. I also find The Birds to be of importance in the understanding of patients and humanity in general.

Adult↗

PubMed2004

Traces of cannibalistic instinct in food denomination.

Drawing attention to the associations evoked in the process of food denomination, the paper attempts to reveal the traces of cannibalistic instinct in this realm. By singling out some of the principal ways used in the semantic reticulum to name food, special attention is devoted to those names that allude to particular categories of enemies (devoured as wholes or as parts of the body). What is referred to as "anti-taboo" shows how the linguistic and more generally the anthropological 'substitution process' is a human reaction to the persistence of the cannibalistic taboo in the face of the belief that cannibalism is an impulse far removed from modern society. Finally it is noted that cannibalistic metaphors have been analysed in other fields, whereas in the area of food denomination they have been neglected. The suggestion is that the reason for such neglect may lie in an attempt to conceal our closeness to the cannibalistic instinct in the form of linguistic substitution.

Anthropology, Cultural↗

PubMed2005

The evolution of beasts and babies: recapitulation, instinct, and the early discourse on child development.

The field of "child study" emerged at the end of the nineteenth century with the purpose of disclosing children's "nature" for the benefit of parents, educators, psychologists, and other interested groups. Borrowed from the biological sciences, narratives of biological recapitulation were common in the discourses about child development during this period. Such theories often measured children against "savages," but they also suggested that the study of childhood offered clues into the evolutionary relationships between humans and animals. By emphasizing the relevance of children's "instincts," observers of child development explained child behavior as the tissue that linked humans and animals.

Animals↗

PubMed1978

Instinctive predatory behavior of the ferret (Putorius putorius furo L.) modified by chlordiazepoxide hydrochloride (Librium).

The predatory behavior of ferrets (Putorius putorius furo L.) consists mainly of instinctive behavioral patterns that are elicited by simple external stimuli. For the ferret, the time needed to catch and kill rats depends on the size of the rats in relation to that of the ferret. Killing success decreases with a relative increase in prey size. Chlordiazepoxide hydrochloride injections (1 mg/kg, i.m.) modified this behavior. Drugged ferrets needed less time and less bites to kill relatively large rats; killing success was also increased. Chlordiazepoxide seemed to disinhibit the ferrets when they were presented with large rats, which they normally attack more cautiously.

Animals↗

PubMed1996

Dread of the strength of the instincts. A psychoanalytic contribution to the understanding of violence.

Dread of the strength of the instincts develops as an affective state in which displacements generally available to an individual have been weakened, rendering that person more vulnerable to committing an act of violence. Although the case presented here includes an act of violence, ways that this act could have been foreseen and thus possibly forestalled through analysis are explored. Factors in this child's development are reviewed with regard to their possible predisposing contributions.

Adult↗

PubMedDate not supplied

Inter-group aggression: the multi-individual organism and the survival instinct.

Inter-group aggression, carried out at the level of the in-groups and out-groups of ethnocentric theory, continued unabated throughout the twentieth century. Its frequency, together with its ferocity, indicates a potent biological cause. We have evolved as social animals, and it is postulated that evolution has proceeded to such an extent that 'multi-individual social organisms', that is, 'social groups that fight each other are self-sustaining, self-replicating whole containing interdependent parts'. This results from the total integration of individuals into the social structure and culture of the in-group; individuals are inseparable from their society and evidence for this proposal is given. Cohesion is given through the collective consciousness and collective memory. The analogy is to multicellular organisms that evolved from the association of single cell organisms. All biological organisms are subject to the survival instinct, which is thus the potent biological cause of inter-group aggression. Groups compete for territory and see other groups as a threat. Prevention of inter-group aggression should come from the insight that threatening behaviour endangers the integrity of the society of out-groups, initiating conflict.

Aggression↗

PubMed1995

Trauma and symbol. Instinct and reality perception in therapeutic work with victims of incest.

With the help of the conceptualizations of Amati and Bleger, and of Jung, the loss of instinctual experience and reality sense in the victims of incestuous abuse is described as an extreme regression to a primary undifferentiated stage of development: that of 'ambiguity' and 'identity'. At this stage the identity of the victim is taken over by that of the aggressor and becomes petrified in a form of mimicry. Differentiation processes are partially blocked. Through the therapeutic work with a woman who was sexually abused as a child, and whose daughter was also being incestuously traumatized, it is demonstrated how, through the use of fantasy, the instinctive reaction of thanatosis can be given up, together with the attempt to find meaning through self-sacrifice, which continually places the victim in renewed danger. By means of activating the transcendent function, the positive pole of the archetype can be set up as a counterforce in the internal world which was once feared like an abuser, and thus as a balance to the images of actual historical violation. The positive pole of the archetype then allows the inner world to loosen itself from the tangled aggressive and auto-aggressive layers of identity. This leads to a revival of protective instinctual reactions and to an improvement in reality functioning. It is emphasized that it is not the recall of actual abuse that promotes therapeutic progress but the evolving symbolizations. The analysis of the symbolic experience leads to the following conclusion: the hypothesis that, on the grounds of positive feelings, the children 'have also wanted' the incestuous activity, cannot be upheld.

Adolescent↗

PubMed1992

Confirmation of Tabachnick and Klugman's hypothesis that the death instinct is constant.

In reporting the accident death rate and the chronic liver disease death rate for 1980, the Bureau of the Census divided the United States into nine areas. To test Tabachnick and Klugman's hypothesis that the amount of death instinct per capita remains constant across regions, the 1980 death rates for accidents and chronic liver disease were correlated. Contrary to earlier studies, the present study gave support for Tabachnick and Klugman's hypothesis.

Accidents, Traffic↗

PubMed2004

Innateness and the instinct to learn.

Concepts of innateness were at the heart of Darwin's approach to behavior and central to the ethological theorizing of Lorenz and, at least to start with, of Tinbergen. Then Tinbergen did an about face, and for some twenty years the term 'innate' became highly suspect. He attributed the change to Lehrman's famous 1953 critique in which he asserted that classifying behaviors as innate tells us nothing about how they develop. Although Lehrman made many valid points, I will argue that this exchange also led to profound misunderstandings that were ultimately damaging to progress in research on the development of behavior. The concept of 'instincts to learn', receiving renewed support from current theorizing among geneticists about phenotypic plasticity, provides a potential resolution of some of the controversies that Lehrman created. Bioacoustical studies, particularly on song learning in birds, serve both to confirm some of Lehrman's anxieties about the term 'innate', but also to make a case that he threw out the genetic baby with the bathwater. The breathtaking progress in molecular and developmental genetics has prepared the way for a fuller understanding of the complexities underlying even the simplest notions of innate behavior, necessary before we can begin to comprehend the ontogeny of behavior.

Animals↗

PubMed1985

Evolution of an instinct under long-term divergent selection for geotaxis in domesticated populations of Drosophila melanogaster.

Long-term divergent selection for geotaxis in lines of Drosophila melanogaster (the fruit fly) is described. After 26 years (600+ generations) of intermittent selection, the mean geotactic scores now remain stable upon relaxed selection, a result suggesting that evolutionary changes have occurred in these lines. Because the stability is not due to genetic fixation (homozygosity) of the lines, it must be due to either close linkage of genes associated with geotaxis (which would not result in enduring change) or the development of new coadapted gene complexes utilizing genes associated with extreme geotaxis expression (which should result in enduring change). Better evidence for the latter hypothesis is obtained from the low, than from the high, line. The notions of coadaptation and genetic homeostasis are considered, as well as the prospective use of the geotaxis lines to study such concepts experimentally. The geotactic behavior expressed in each line is defined as "instinctive": It increases reproductive success and is characteristic of a population.

Animals↗

PubMed1985

Self-envy, the womb and the nature of goodness. A reappraisal of the death instinct.

The Freudian and Kleinian conceptions of the struggle between 'life' and 'death' instincts are not identical. This paper puts forward a model which attempts both to reconcile and add to the differences between them, whilst making some suggestions about the 'nature of goodness'. Attention is focused on the phantasy of returning to the womb and its consequent anxieties to the growing, active ego. Such anxiety, and its reverse, can only be moderated by the introjection of an object which is capable of creatively resolving the resulting conflicts. When envious feelings are not tolerated the impetus for such an introjection is reduced, which, in turn, increases the envy.

Anxiety↗