Attachment Theory and Research. Группа авторов

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Attachment Theory and Research - Группа авторов


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interests of the individual which go to the wall. That anatomical and physiological characteristics are subject to this rule has long been recognized. The conspicuous plumage of many birds, which is indispensable to their success in mating, may be most disadvantageous to their safety. The interests of individual survival are sacrificed; the interests of species propagation are paramount. That psychological characteristics are subject to the same law has, thanks largely to the superficial plausibility of the self‐preservation theory, been slow to be appreciated. Yet it is clear that all psychological characteristics which have been developed because of their species survival value must be so subject, and these must include any characteristics to which the term instinctual is applied. For these reasons, in discussing the theory of anxiety and fright reactions, no references will be made to the concept of self‐preservation. Instead we shall be thinking in terms of species‐specific behaviour patterns, or instinctual response systems as I prefer to call them,8 which are present because of their survival value to the species and which operate, at least initially, in the blind and automatic way regarded by Freud as characteristic of the id.

      The hypothesis advanced is that, whenever an instinctual response system is activated and is unable for any reason to reach termination, a form of anxiety results. The blockage may be of many different kinds. In some cases the environment may fail to provide the terminating conditions, as for example when there is sexual arousal in the absence of an appropriate partner. In other cases two or more instinctual responses may be active but incompatible, for example, attack and escape. In other cases again, the blockage may be associated with fear or guilt, or some deeper inhibition. No doubt the particular form of blockage will influence outcome; here, however, I wish to emphasize only the common feature. No matter what the nature of the blockage, it is postulated, if an instinctual response system is activated and unable to reach termination, changes occur both in behaviour (namely in psychological and physiological functioning) and also in the subjective experience of the individual himself. When it rises above a moderate level it gives rise to the subjective experience of anxiety. To distinguish it from other forms of anxiety I am terming it primary anxiety.

      Thus we find that escape


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