Thoughts of a psychiatrist on the war and after / by William A. White.

  • William Alanson White
Date:
1919
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Thoughts of a psychiatrist on the war and after / by William A. White. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    hunger instinct, the sex instinct, the in¬ stinct to fight enemies, the instinct to seek would be that He is buying a house. If all of the observable data are present the question can be answered, some behaviorists say, without reference at all to the data of introspection. However, there can be no question but that psychology had made a great advance when it came to deal with conduct, in fact it, for the first time, was primarily inter¬ ested in material that was truly psychological. It remained for the psychoanalyst to take the next step which, while it continued to deal with conduct, did not ignore the introspective data. He saw the importance of recognizing that the mind was an expression of the individual as a whole and that in the field of the psyche were fought out those battles of the instincts each of which tried to capture the individual and bend all of his ener¬ gies to its purpose. Conduct thus becomes the final result in action of the various instinctive ten¬ dencies as they struggle for ascendency and suc¬ ceed, fail, or more frequently reach some com¬ promise. In this struggle of the instinctive tendencies, this constant “battle of motives,” each tendency fights, so to speak, to bring to pass the realization of its own particular trend, it seeks certain ends, it tries to compass them, it desires to bring them [13]