Psychoanalysis and cognitive-evolutionary psychology: An attempt at integration

The authors argue that the abandonment of the theory of trauma in 1897 was a trauma for Freud himself; who was led to 'despair: and possibly reacted w ith an overemphasis on inner fantasies and drive discharge. They suggest th at today we are facing a second trauma in the history of psychoanalysis tha t we might call the 'abandonment of drive theory: ie. the notion that human beings strive not primarily to reduce sexual and aggressive drives but rat her seek objects, assign meanings, test previous beliefs and assimilate new schemes. Our task is to recover as Freud was able 20 do, giving a new impe tus to psychoanalysis. The current challenge is, on the one hand, a revisio n of the psychoanalytic conception of inherited information, and, on the ot her, a theory of motivation based on converging evidence from cognitive sci ence, ethology, infant research and psychotherapy research. Many clinical m odels are current in contemporary psychoanalysis. Only as one example among these models, some concepts used in Weiss & Sampson's 'Control-Mastery The ory' will be discussed in light of cognitive science and evolutionary epist emology within the framework of (a) the 1960 classic, 'Plans and Structure of Behavior' by Miller, Galanter and Pribram (b) Edelman's neurobiological theory and (c) Bowlby's attachment theory.