Darwin's influence on psychoanalysis
Darwin’s Primal Influence on Psychoanalysis
Charles Darwin’s substantially influential writing examines a vast rang of topics that were brought to the attention of many leading scholars throughout history. Darwin preceded Sigmund Freud and the invention of psychoanalysis by approximately 50 years. Through the exploration of Darwinian theory and the later development of psychoanalysis, it is clear that Charles Darwin’s theories had a profound influence of the development of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. This becomes clear after analyzing such themes as sexual motivation through evolution, the Freudian ego, the connection between human and animal emotion, adaptive responses and the unconscious mind.
Sexual Evolution and Motivation Darwin and Freud both evaluated the connection between biological traits and inheritance as expressed through social constructs, such as sexual impulses and desire. This theory manifests itself by examining human biology, neurology, evolution and applying it to expressed behavioural traits. A fundamental and intrinsic element of human behaviour stems from evolutionary adaptations in which basic desires are adapted through the recognition of success from earlier generations. Through this evolution, both Darwin and Freud placed an enormous emphasis on an individual’s desire for survival, the ultimate goal being self-preservation. Darwin and Freud’s theories converge at the point of primal and instinctive behaviour.
Darwin’s most relevant discovery was natural selection. He approached his work as purely biological by viewing humans as primates. He explains “their forms of behaviour and social organization as natural manifestations of their elementary biological dispositions for survival and reproduction”(Carroll, 52). This meant that the motivation for sexual reproduction was unconscious and biologically wired into human for their survival. The human with the most efficient and best
Charles Darwin’s substantially influential writing examines a vast rang of topics that were brought to the attention of many leading scholars throughout history. Darwin preceded Sigmund Freud and the invention of psychoanalysis by approximately 50 years. Through the exploration of Darwinian theory and the later development of psychoanalysis, it is clear that Charles Darwin’s theories had a profound influence of the development of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory. This becomes clear after analyzing such themes as sexual motivation through evolution, the Freudian ego, the connection between human and animal emotion, adaptive responses and the unconscious mind.
Sexual Evolution and Motivation Darwin and Freud both evaluated the connection between biological traits and inheritance as expressed through social constructs, such as sexual impulses and desire. This theory manifests itself by examining human biology, neurology, evolution and applying it to expressed behavioural traits. A fundamental and intrinsic element of human behaviour stems from evolutionary adaptations in which basic desires are adapted through the recognition of success from earlier generations. Through this evolution, both Darwin and Freud placed an enormous emphasis on an individual’s desire for survival, the ultimate goal being self-preservation. Darwin and Freud’s theories converge at the point of primal and instinctive behaviour.
Darwin’s most relevant discovery was natural selection. He approached his work as purely biological by viewing humans as primates. He explains “their forms of behaviour and social organization as natural manifestations of their elementary biological dispositions for survival and reproduction”(Carroll, 52). This meant that the motivation for sexual reproduction was unconscious and biologically wired into human for their survival. The human with the most efficient and best
References: Darwin, Charles, and Joseph Carroll. On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection. Peterborough, Ont.: Broadview, 2003. 52 Richards, Janet Radcliffe. Human Nature after Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction. London: Routledge, 2000. 175. Barkow, Jerome H. Darwin, Sex, and Status: Biological Approaches to Mind and Culture. Toronto ; Buffalo: University of Toronto, 1989. Cartwright, John. Evolutionary Explanations of Human Behaviour. Hove [England: Routledge, 2001. 36-227. Darwin, Charles, and Paul Ekman. The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. 174-367. Westerink, Herman. Figures of the Unconscious: A Dark Trace: Sigmund Freud on the Sense of Guilt. Leuven [Belgium: Leuven UP, 2009. 87-101 Cordón, Luis A. Freud 's World: An Encyclopedia of His Life and times. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2012. 74-225. Sharpe, Matthew, and Joanne Faulkner. Understanding Psychoanalysis. Stocksfield: Acumen, 2008. 39. Zamulinski, Brian Edward. Evolutionary Intuitionism: A Theory of the Origin and Nature of Moral Facts. Montreal: McGill-Queen 's UP, 2007. 5-11.