| Titre : | The Biology of Human Conflict (Perspectives in Social Inquiry) | | Type de document : | texte imprimé | | Auteurs : | Trigant BURROW | | Autre Editeur : | New York Times Company | | Année de publication : | 1974 | | Importance : | 336 | | ISBN/ISSN/EAN : | 978-2-08-122488-9 | | Langues : | Français | | Catégories : | Affect
alcoolisme
ambivalence
Attention
Comportement
Comportementalisme
Conditionnement
Sociothérapie
| | Mots-clés : | Sociothérapie Affect Alcoolisme Ambivalence Attention Comportement Comportementalisme Conditionnement | | Résumé : | THE BIOLOGY OF HUMAN CONFLICT. By Trigant Burrow. The lMacmillan Company, New York, 1937. xl 435 pp. $3.50 The central theme of this book can be briefly stated; mental diseases and kindred behavior disorders are not due, as is commonly supposed, to a conflict of ideas. This is merely a superficial view which does not reach the bottom of the problem. The essential basis lies deeper; it is physiological, not ideational. It consists of a state of physiological tension set up within the body by the cerebral symbolic mechanism, which has gained a pathological dominance over the body as a whole. The tensions produced can be best studied in the muscles of the eye and brow. An alteration of the internal state of the body so as to relieve the tensions will (presumably) cure mental disease. These 'tension states are not confined to people supposedly mentally ill. They are common to all mankind (or in the author's peculiar terminology, man as a phylum). A mass readjustment of tension will cure crime, general social maladjustment, international problems, and war. In the early years of childhood, before ideas have developed, there is a complete and happy union of the individual with his environment. It is the state of blissful union with nature described by the poets, and in Romain Rolland's lean Christophe. He is, moreover, a part of the environment and the environment is a part of him-there is no line of demarcation. With the development of language, however, this happy relation changes. The individual comes to use symbols more and more, and reacts to them rather than to the real environment. Moreover, he comes to separate himself from the environment and in so doing establishes an "arbitrary" cleavage. There are now two reaction systems in the individual. The one is the primitive total reacting system called the organism as a whole, or the empathic system. The other is a newer system consisting of a part of the individual, the cerebral or cephalic end which reacts not to the actual environment but to the artificial symbols, called the partitive system, in contrast to the organism as a whole. The formation of the two systems is, however, not the cause of the trouble. The difficulty arises later when the partitive system invades the empathic system and takes some of its affect, or in other words, when ideas become invested with affect or emotion. Pure ideas or symbols are harmless to the organism; ideas loaded with affect are the cause of the pathological tension. This tension cannot be cured by psychotherapy; ideas cannot be combatted with ideas to obtain a really fundamental cure. The two basic systems must be separated from each other by physiological methods. This, then, is the thesis of the book. To describe it the author seems to find it necessary to use old words out of their current meaning (e.g., man as a phylum) and to devise a complex new terminology of his own (phylopathology, total and partial mergents, total bionomic ambit, etc.). The unscientific methods of current psychiatric studies are loudly berated. The 606 BOOK REVIEWS 607 author offers no evidence to support his own contentions other than "laboratory studies show," "phylobiological investigations show," "my researches and those of my associates show." A really specific account of the therapeutic method to be used, or how the physiological method is to be applied, is found nowhere in the book, nor are any concrete case histories supplied. A much-needed glossary, fortunately, is given. -CLYDE MARSHALL |
The Biology of Human Conflict (Perspectives in Social Inquiry) [texte imprimé] / Trigant BURROW . - [S.l.] : New York Times Company, 1974 . - 336. ISBN : 978-2-08-122488-9 Langues : Français | Catégories : | Affect
alcoolisme
ambivalence
Attention
Comportement
Comportementalisme
Conditionnement
Sociothérapie
| | Mots-clés : | Sociothérapie Affect Alcoolisme Ambivalence Attention Comportement Comportementalisme Conditionnement | | Résumé : | THE BIOLOGY OF HUMAN CONFLICT. By Trigant Burrow. The lMacmillan Company, New York, 1937. xl 435 pp. $3.50 The central theme of this book can be briefly stated; mental diseases and kindred behavior disorders are not due, as is commonly supposed, to a conflict of ideas. This is merely a superficial view which does not reach the bottom of the problem. The essential basis lies deeper; it is physiological, not ideational. It consists of a state of physiological tension set up within the body by the cerebral symbolic mechanism, which has gained a pathological dominance over the body as a whole. The tensions produced can be best studied in the muscles of the eye and brow. An alteration of the internal state of the body so as to relieve the tensions will (presumably) cure mental disease. These 'tension states are not confined to people supposedly mentally ill. They are common to all mankind (or in the author's peculiar terminology, man as a phylum). A mass readjustment of tension will cure crime, general social maladjustment, international problems, and war. In the early years of childhood, before ideas have developed, there is a complete and happy union of the individual with his environment. It is the state of blissful union with nature described by the poets, and in Romain Rolland's lean Christophe. He is, moreover, a part of the environment and the environment is a part of him-there is no line of demarcation. With the development of language, however, this happy relation changes. The individual comes to use symbols more and more, and reacts to them rather than to the real environment. Moreover, he comes to separate himself from the environment and in so doing establishes an "arbitrary" cleavage. There are now two reaction systems in the individual. The one is the primitive total reacting system called the organism as a whole, or the empathic system. The other is a newer system consisting of a part of the individual, the cerebral or cephalic end which reacts not to the actual environment but to the artificial symbols, called the partitive system, in contrast to the organism as a whole. The formation of the two systems is, however, not the cause of the trouble. The difficulty arises later when the partitive system invades the empathic system and takes some of its affect, or in other words, when ideas become invested with affect or emotion. Pure ideas or symbols are harmless to the organism; ideas loaded with affect are the cause of the pathological tension. This tension cannot be cured by psychotherapy; ideas cannot be combatted with ideas to obtain a really fundamental cure. The two basic systems must be separated from each other by physiological methods. This, then, is the thesis of the book. To describe it the author seems to find it necessary to use old words out of their current meaning (e.g., man as a phylum) and to devise a complex new terminology of his own (phylopathology, total and partial mergents, total bionomic ambit, etc.). The unscientific methods of current psychiatric studies are loudly berated. The 606 BOOK REVIEWS 607 author offers no evidence to support his own contentions other than "laboratory studies show," "phylobiological investigations show," "my researches and those of my associates show." A really specific account of the therapeutic method to be used, or how the physiological method is to be applied, is found nowhere in the book, nor are any concrete case histories supplied. A much-needed glossary, fortunately, is given. -CLYDE MARSHALL |
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