Instinct and the Unconscious: a contribution to a biological theory of the psycho-neuroses.
Rivers (1920)
Instinct and the Unconscious: a contribution to a biological theory of the psycho-neuroses.
Full text of the book, originally published in 1920 by Cambridge University Press in England, courtesy of Christopher Green's Classics in the History of Psychology website.
In this book, Dr. Rivers explores theoretical aspects of his clinical experiences, at Maghull and Craiglockhart War Hospitals, treating "shell shock" and "war neuroses" among soldiers traumatized in WWI combat. His insight that avoidance of traumatic experiences does not assist recovery was prescient, and he saw dissociation as one type of suppression -- thus distinguishing distinct avoidance strategies. Rivers discusses self-preservation and "danger instincts" stirred during trauma in conjunction with Freud's ideas about the unconscious; this placed psychotherapy, especially for the traumatic form of "psycho-neuroses", within the theoretical framework of biology.
Instinct and the Unconscious: a contribution to a biological theory of the psycho-neuroses.
Full text of the book, originally published in 1920 by Cambridge University Press in England, courtesy of Christopher Green's Classics in the History of Psychology website.
In this book, Dr. Rivers explores theoretical aspects of his clinical experiences, at Maghull and Craiglockhart War Hospitals, treating "shell shock" and "war neuroses" among soldiers traumatized in WWI combat. His insight that avoidance of traumatic experiences does not assist recovery was prescient, and he saw dissociation as one type of suppression -- thus distinguishing distinct avoidance strategies. Rivers discusses self-preservation and "danger instincts" stirred during trauma in conjunction with Freud's ideas about the unconscious; this placed psychotherapy, especially for the traumatic form of "psycho-neuroses", within the theoretical framework of biology.
posted 11:50 p.m.
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