This provocative volume attempts to correlate psychoanalysis and current biological thinking. The original papers were read at the Interdisciplinary Research Conference sponsored by the Department of Psychiatry of the University of Wisconsin in June 1963. The participants included such illustrious names as John Benjamin, Robert Holt, George Klein, Sydney Margolin, Donald Oken, Mortimer Ostow, Karl Pribram, Benjamin Rubinstein, Frederick Snyder, and Herbert Weiner. We have contributions by workers of different backgrounds providing a rich exploration of an area that is neither psychoanalysis nor biology proper. At times one can feel a touch of excitement at the insights offered by the contributors.
There are themes which come up again and again in various contexts, eg, nature of consciousness, varieties of experiencing and perceiving, and how they relate to the processes of biology. The concept of instinctual drives is said to be biological, but it is never stated in what sense the