Instinct and the Unconscious
A Contribution to a Biological Theory of the Psycho-Neuroses

First published in 1922, this book examines the uses of psycho-therapy in the treatment of the psycho-neuroses of war.

W. H. R. Rivers (Author)

9781107674936, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 3 April 2014

286 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 1.6 cm, 0.42 kg

First published in 1922 as the second edition of a 1920 original, and formed from lectures delivered in the Psychological Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in 1919, this book attempts 'to put into a biological setting the system of psycho-therapy which came to be generally adopted in Great Britain in the treatment of the psycho-neuroses of war' in the wake of WWI. Rivers suggests a variety of treatments for war-related psychological disorders, including hypnotism, and the possible link between of military duties and 'the neuroses of warfare'. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in the history of psychology or in psychological disorders arising from combat situations.

Preface
1. Introduction
2. The unconscious
3. Suppression
4. Suppression and inhibition
5. The context of the unconscious
6. The nature of instinct
7. The danger-instincts
8. Suppression and the all-or-none principle
9. Instinct and suppression
10. Dissociation
11. The 'complex'
12. Suggestion
13. Hypnotism
14. Sleep
15. The psycho-neuroses
16. Hysteria or substitution-neurosis
17. Other modes of solution
18. Regression
19. Sublimation
Appendix I. Freud's psychology of the unconscious
Appendix II. A case of claustrophobia
Appendix III. The repression of war experience
Appendix IV. War-neurosis and military training
Appendix V. Freud's conception of the 'censorship'
Appendix VI. 'Wind-up'
Appendix VII. Psychology and the war
Appendix VIII. The instinct of acquisition
Index.

Subject Areas: Clinical psychology [MMJ]