Compassion and Altruism in Psychoanalytic Theory: An Evolutionary Analysis of Self Psychology

Abstract

Freud's creation of psychoanalysis was, in part, a reaction to the societal, religious morality that denied the ubiquitous drivenness that repeatedly confronted him, the essential animal nature of homo sapiens as had been recently made clear by the theory of evolution. For example, Freud (1933) wrote an aggression, It is a general principle. . .that conflicts of interest between men are settled by the use of violence. This is true of the whole animal kingdom, from which men have no business to exclude themselves. Though evolutionary theory was in its infancy, incompletely understood even by its creator, Freud's commitment to facing its truths led to an unswerving stance in reaction to attempts to deny the narcissistic injury inherent in his psychoanalytic discoveries. He insisted on trying to reinterpret virtually all social behaviors in the light of his new theory, and he and his followers have stretched his drive/structure model to its limits. Yet, as we have seen, this evolutionary creation--the human psyche--cannot be fully accounted for utilizing the vicissitudes of Freud's two instincts. What we come to appreciate when we bring the perspective of the theory of evolution to the relational/structure versus drive/structure debate, is that the debate is about the two sides of the same coin. Like this metaphor, in the case of the selfish, yet social, human animal, you cannot have a one-sided coin. Both drives and relationships are biologically inherent and have their structuralizing effect upon the supraordinate self. A modern evolutionary biological, psychoanalytic conception of conflicts and drives may actually be closer to the adaptive/functional tone of aspects of the self psychological paradigm than to the traditional perspective. As human animals we are inherently in conflict over our irreducible biologically based driven, asocial needs (i.e., self-enhancing pleasure seeking and avoidance of unpleasure) and our irreducible biologically based needs for a self-selfobject milieu. A dynamic tension between these two motivational pulls is adaptive (has been selected for) due to the great flexibility it provides in enabling this large brained, nonreflexively driven, social organism fully to exploit all aspects of its environment in pursuit of its own best interest. In its clinical application this viewpoint sees our patients caught between their basic self-enhancing instinctual drivenness for sensual pleasure and power, and their irreducible self-enhancing need for a self-selfobject milieu.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)

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COMPASSION AND ALTRUISM IN
PSYCHOANALYTIC THEORY: AN
EVOLUTIONARY ANALYSIS OF
SELF PSYCHOLOGY*
DANIEL KRIEGMAN, Ph.D.**
DRIVE/STRUCTURE VS RELATIONAL/
STRUCTURE IN PSYCHOANALYTIC
METAPSYCHOLOGY
Psychoanalytic theories can be arranged along a continuum. At one end, enduring
structural aspects of the psyche are primarily seen as derivative of the vicissitudes of
drives, while at the other end, structure derives from the vicissitudes of relationships
(Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983). Ultimately an integration of these two viewpoints
appears to be necessary for a psychoanalysis that is consistent with evolutionary biology
(Kriegman and Slavin, 1989, 1990; Slavin, 1990; Slavin and Kriegman, 1989). However,
this article focuses on the challenges to the classical paradigm that modern evolutionary
theory poses. We shall see that the main thrust of self psychology, a relational/structure
model is more consistent with what we now know about the evolution of our species.
We shall restrict our focus to ego psychology, the foundations of which are
presented in the work of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and Hartmann—which we shall
refer to as classical or traditional psychoanalysis—and the profound challenge to this
viewpoint presented by Kohut’s self psychology. Some of the points that are supportive
of self psychology could also apply to theories that are closer to the traditional viewpoint,
for example, Margaret Mahler’s relational focus within, but as an accommodation of, the
drive/structure model. Therefore, it might be said that drive/structure theorizing can
encompass the relational “urge towards union,” for example, in the drive derived concepts
of symbiosis and individuation (Mahler et al., 1975). However, the accommodations
necessary to fully explain relational data leave the original spirit of the drive/structure
model; the more they encompass the relational issues the further they travel from the
drive/structure model (Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983).
Let us look at one brief example to demonstrate this point. Hartmann’s (1939)
focus on adaptation suggested that the ego is as biological as the drives, though the
“social bond” continued to be contrasted with the “biological relationship” between
mother and child, with the biological relationship being seen as the essence (Hartmann et
al., 1951). While this brought ego psychology one step closer to the biological
perspective being presented here, in such a conceptualization there is a failure to
recognize that the “social bond” is also a biological phenomenon. Mahler, et al.’s (1975)
depiction of symbiosis as an extension of Hartmann’s concept of adaptive functioning
corrected this error and brought the relational issue into the center focus of the
drive/structure model.
*Journal of the American Academy of Psychoanalysis, Volume 18, No. 2, Summer 1990, 342-367.
**Co-Director, Cambridge Institute for the Study of Psychoanalysis and Human Evolution.

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In Mahler’s view, symbiosis is seen as a species’ adaptation, engaging the biology
of both the mother and child. Both are biologically active in seeking, maintaining, and
manipulating the relationship. Because of the child’s “biological unpreparedness” (p.
197), it has an inborn adaptive push to seek a symbiotic “self-object” fusion with the
mother. This is later, at the phase-appropriate time, opposed by the equall symbiotic
“self-object” fusion y adaptive “drive for and toward individuation,” which is also
understood to be “an innate powerful given” (p. 206, emphases in original). However, in
spite of Mahler’s attempts to conceptualize these modes of relatedness as deriving from
libidinal drive pressure (tension discharge, quiescence seeking) something more is being
introduced into the theory. In the tension reduction focused concept of the dual drives
inherent in the tripartite structural model, how can one conceptualize powerful
motivations for modes of relatedness? As we can see, something more is “sneaking” into
drive/structure theory as accommodations are made in the attempt to encompass relational
data.
THE TRADITIONAL PSYCHOANALYTIC
VIEWPOINT
One theme that pervades Freud’s entire life work was his attempt to perceive and
face the implications of the evolutionary continuity between humanity and the rest of the
animal kingdom (Kriegman, 1988, Slavin, 1985; Slavin and Kriegman, 1988). This focus
was clear in a series of papers Freud wrote some 20 years before he created
psychoanalysis (e.g., Freud, 1878). Freud’s commitment to this evolutionary insight may
have lain at the heart of his rejection of the work of modifiers whom he saw as attempting
to deny his hard-faced insights into our animal nature (Kriegman, 1988).
This view of humanity finds explicit expression in the basic paradigmatic
perspective of traditional psychoanalytic theory that is presented in Freud’s Civilization
and Its Discontents (1930). Ancient instinctual urges—the only motivating
forces—within the human organism are fundamentally at odds with the more recent rules
and structures of society. Freud’s presentation of this point was unequivocal. The
capacity for empathy, for example, in the form of compassion, was seen as a false facade
over our true nature:
feelings of compassion* ... necessitate the notion of a reaction-formation against
[sadism]. (1915a, p. 129)
Reaction-formations against certain instincts take the deceptive form of a change in their
content, as though egoism had changed into altruism, or cruelty into compassion.
(1915b, p. 281)
Altruism and aim-inhibited love (Freud, 1921) are achievements in opposition to our
primary human nature (pleasure seeking full drive discharge) and certainly are not seen as
having their own motivational sources.
Eventually Freud shifted his focus to the ego, but this basic drive/structure
assumption remained: biology—composed of primitive, self-serving, asocial drives—is
in conflict with “higher order,” less primitive mental processes—the rational, reality
oriented, recently developed complex neo-cortex and the moral and cultural demands that
also became possible with the increase in brain capacity and the development of
*“Pity” or “compassion” can be used here to translate the German “Mitleid,” literally “suffering with” (Strachey,
1957b, p. 129).

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civilization.
EGO PSYCHOLOGY AND THE PROBLEM OF
ADAPTATION
Hartmann tried to remedy the basic biological misconception inherent in such a
perspective. In trying to define the psychoanalytic meaning of “adaptation” he asks:
Have we the right to exclude the processes of adaptation from biology? Biological
functions and environmental relationships are not in antithesis. This is not merely a
terminological correction: the terms imply an underestimation of the very areas of
biology [adaptive psychological functioning] with which we are concerned here. (1939,
p. 33)
Hartmann was reacting to the tendency to see the id as the biological part of the human
psyche as contrasted with the environment focused “non-biological” ego. Hartmann
argued that this is a basic misunderstanding of biology in which all life forms, physical
structures, patterns of behavior, and psychological processes and structures must be seen
as biological.*
Hartmann’s struggle with what is and what isn’t biological led him to the
conclusion that the ego must be considered a biological structure and therefore must have
its own growth and development independent of the id. Thus, some ego functions are not
the result of conflict, that is, could have their own growth and energic, motivational
resources without being energized through repressed, sublimated, or neutralized drives.
However, the conflict-free sphere that Hartmann (1939) defined is almost entirely
cognitive or psycho-motor:
I refer to the development outside of conflict of perception, intention, object
comprehension, thinking, language, recall-phenomena, productivity, to the well-known
phases of motor development, grasping, crawling, walking, and to the maturation and
learning processes implicit in all these and many others. (p. 8)
Hartmann did not examine the possibility of there being object relational needs
that have their own motivational or energic sources, independent of conflicts over sexual
or aggressive drives. While Hartmann’s cognitive and psycho-motor skills can be
understood as theoretically free of conflict, he makes it clear that rarely are these faculties
unaffected by conflicts and characteristic ego resolutions of conflict. Just so, might there
be adaptive emotional/relational needs that should be considered as developing without
being derivative of conflict, even though we may rarely see them without conflictual
entanglements? As we shall see, evolution theory predicts just such a phenomenon.
Freud specifically attempted to preclude the development of such a concept by
introducing the concept of “narcissism” (1914) as a partial solution to some of the
problems of
the relations between the ego and external objects. [In this solution] one of Freud’s
*Curiously, earlier in his attempt to define adaptation, Hartmann dismissed the role of adaptation as defined by
evolution theory and natural selection: “At this point we encounter the controversies about the relation of
phylogenesis to adaptation and the solutions proposed by Darwinism, Lamarckism, and other biological theories.
These theories, however, have no direct bearing on our problem (ibid, p. 24). This is not so. It has been shown that
understanding phylogenetic adaptive consequences of psychoanalytic structures and dynamics can be directly related
to our understanding of ontogenetic adaptive solutions (Kriegman, 1988, Kriegman and Slavin, 1989, 1990; Slavin,
1985; Slavin and Kriegman, 1988, 1990). Possibly, by avoiding the issue of “Darwin, Lamarck, and other biological
theories,” Hartmann could avoid trying to defend or reject Freud’s embarrassing Lamarckism. This may have been
the “controversy” to which he was referring.

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motives was, no doubt, to show that the concept of narcissism offers an alternative to
Jung’s non-sexual “libido’ ... (Strachey, 1957a, pp. 69-71).
Using “narcissism” Freud was able to encompass self-love, parental love for children, and
the idealizing component of being “in love,” within his conflict model of essentially
asocial, instinctual, sexual/libidinal energy operating under the pleasure principle, and
being opposed by repressive forces.
The concept of narcissism in classical theory was specifically introduced in an
attempt to extend the drive-conflict-structure paradigm to encompass what others might
call nonsexual libido, that is, relational energies that are not derived from sexual or
aggressive drives operating under the tension reduction pleasure principle.* This need to
encompass all the data within Freud’s drive/structure theory was a major focus for Freud
(and his followers) who felt that those who would introduce new terms would water down
Freud’s hard won biological truths about the animal/instinctual nature of the human
psyche.**
KOHUT, A RELATIONAL/STRUCTURE
THEORIST
The data from psychoanalytic clinical observation clearly indicates that conflict is
ubiquitous. The challenge to the drive/structure paradigm comes from questioning
whether conflict between asocial drives and the demands of civilization: (1) lies at the
core of the human psyche, and (2) can fully account for the relational needs and
narcissistic strivings that we find in the clinical data. Kohut labels the Freudian vision of
the essential nature of the human condition, “Guilty Man”:
man as an insufficiently and incompletely tamed animal, reluctant to give up his wish to
live by the pleasure principle, unable to relinquish his innate destructiveness. (1982, p.
401)
In traditional psychoanalytic thought, the parents, as society’s representatives, are
inevitably in conflict with the sexual and aggressive drives of the child. The unavoidable
“discontent” begins in childhood as the parents attempt to enculturate their child.
Ultimately anxiety and guilt internalize the interpersonal conflict within the child,
removing the need for external control. In the self psychological view, problems arise
from the failure of the parent to provide adequate empathic holding/mirroring and
idealized models for the narcissistic development of the child. The new metaphor that
Kohut (1982) introduces—Odysseus (the loving father tragically torn away from his
family) versus Oedipus (the guilt-ridden, conflicted father-killer)—clarifies this essential
difference between the assumptions of self psychology and the traditional psychoanalytic
assumptions.
While it is not my contention that evolutionary biology supports a conflict free
view of the human psyche—in fact, the opposite is true (see Kriegman and Slavin, 1990;
and Slavin and Kriegman, 1990)—I will try to show that the asocial, drive/structure
*This was later to be further reduced to the death instinct, though few analysts followed Freud (1920) on his
journey “beyond the pleasure principle.” For an evolutionary biological analysis of this issue, along with it’s
implications for clinical psychoanalysis, see Kriegman and Slavin (1989).
**It is not surprising that it is this very concept—narcissism—around which a new paradigm has formed.
Following Kuhn’s (1962) analysis of scientific revolutions can see that Kohut (1966, 1971, 1977) also struggled to
encompass his data in the existing paradigmatic drive/structure terms, but eventually felt that the data forced him into
rethinking some basic concepts.

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theorizing of the classical view is, indeed, out of sync with the natural order, does not
“jibe” with what we now know about the evolution of our species.
THE PSYCHOANALYST’S GUILT AND THE
EVOLUTIONIST’S ALTRUISM
Both the psychoanalytic and evolutionary theories have had to struggle with the
existence of pro-social behavior that appears to be motivated by care and concern for
others.* Both theories had a hard time explaining behavior that benefits others often at a
cost to the actor (Darwin, 1871; Hamilton, 1964, 1969; Kriegman, 1988; Trivers, 1971,
1985).
In evolutionary theory “altruism” refers to an act that increases the fitness of
another organism at the expense of the altruistically behaving organism whose fitness is
decreased (Trivers, 1971). The assumption is that “altruistic behavior” refers to much of
the same phenomena that psychoanalysis refers to as moral, guilt, or shame related.** We
can now recast the classical psychoanalytic assumptions underlying our understanding of
guilt utilizing this evolutionary term: manifestly altruistic, pro-social behavior results
from conflict-based modifications in the self-serving sexual and aggressive instincts that
comprise the primary human motivational forces. Only through the phylogenetically
recent development of guilt (superego moral anxiety) did altruistic behavior and
civilization become possible.
THE EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
Before we apply the evolutionary perspective to psychoanalysis, let us briefly
clarify our terms, starting with this condensed version of evolutionary theory from
Dawkins (1976), who said that evolutionary theory can
be read as though it were science fiction ... But it is not science fiction: it is science.
Cliche or not, “stranger than fiction’ expresses how I feel about the truth. We are
survival machines—robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules
known as genes. (p. ix)
Such is the essence of the principles of evolution! All life forms are simply structures
that enhance the survival and replication of copies of their DNA codes. Those that
succeed become more common, while those that fail disappear. All life forms, structures
(physical and mental), and behavior patterns can be understood in terms of the benefit
these patterns provide to the genetic material underlying them.***
The evolutionary principle of competition and “survival of the fittest,” appears to
offer very strong support for the psychoanalytic notion of internal conflict. For
civilization to be possible, the tendency toward interorganism conflict would have to be
*I would suggest that the psychoanalytic struggle follows directly from the evolutionary for it was the
evolutionary perspective that was, in large part, responsible for Freud’s insistence on our animalistic, competitive,
selfish nature.
**While many authors have distinguished between guilt and shame (Morrison, 1984)—and some see shame as
being of equal importance with guilt—both guilt and shame are often understood as arising out of the conflict with
the super-ego (or its structural precursors) and these phenomena are usually seen as the “id-taming” forces. Thus,
this discussion applies to either guilt or shame when it is viewed from within the more traditional perspective.
***Gould (1977), Kitcher (1985), Mayr (1983), and others have cautioned us about the limits of this adaptationist
perspective. These limits, especially in reference to psychoanalysis are discussed in some detail in Kriegman and
Slavin (1989).

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tempered. In a competitive world where the overriding activating principle is the survival
of one’s own genes, altruistic behavior and cooperation, at best, might appear as a
tenuous by-product of a system for internalizing controls, for example, a system that
produces intraorganism (internal) conflict using a “superego” and guilt. There appear to
be no forces leading to the direct development of altruism through specific selective
pressures that would make altruism itself adaptive.
However, two important lines of evolutionary thought suggest that this is not so.
What is suggested is that altruistic behavior of different forms can be directly adaptive,
that is, can lead to the increased success of the altruistically behaving organism by
increasing the representation in the gene pool of the genetic material carried by the
altruist. There are two forms of the argument, both of which suggest that a cooperative,
compassionate, and altruistic attitude toward others may directly confer upon the bearer a
powerful adaptive advantage—may greatly increase the altruist’s fitness.
THE EVOLUTIONARY CHALLENGE TO
CLASSICAL THEORY: HAMILTON’S KIN
ALTRUISM
The first form of the argument focuses on altruistic behavior directed toward one’s
kin (Hamilton, 1964). If the survival of copies of an organism’s genes in other
individuals and in the resultant future gene pool for the species is the ultimate measure of
evolutionary success or fitness, then the survival and success of the individual is not the
focus of selective pressures. Natural selection has shaped organisms that maximize their
inclusive (genetic) fitness, not their personal fitness. While at times these may overlap,
the important distinction between them will become clear momentarily.
Remembering that we defined “altruism” as behavior that increases another’s
fitness while decreasing the fitness of the altruist, we can see that parental behavior which
benefits the child, often at considerable cost to the parent, is clearly altruistic. However,
the “cost” to the altruist (in this case the parent) in reduced personal fitness must be
diminished by the degree of relatedness to the beneficiary of the altruistic behavior (in
this case the child). Altruistic parental behavior may reduce a parent’s ability to survive
and thrive—that is, may reduce the parent’s personal fitness—while actually increasing
the parent’s inclusive fitness (reproductive success) as the beneficiary carries copies of
the parent’s genes.
To the extent that parents share genetic material with their offspring, they should
be willing, able, and eager to “read” their children`s needs and respond helpfully to them.
Kohut described this fit between the needs of the child and parental motivation to invest
in the growth and increasing fitness of the child. Is this not what we would expect
evolution to “program” into the human organism? Is it not likely that there are powerful
biological motivators in other species that, without guilt induced conflict, lead to altruistic
behavior toward offspring? We would expect to see at least the “residue” of such forces
in humans since it is unlikely that homo sapiens would completely drop an adaptive
mechanism that was used in our recent evolutionary history. Thus, we should expect that
in the biology of human beings there is a natural, direct tendency to act altruistically
towards one’s offspring and to a lesser degree, because of a smaller amount of shared
genetic material, to all kin.
Kin altruism can not be understood as a “higher development” of cortical
processes in opposition to instinctual motivations. Rather, such altruism is understood as
deriving from the most primitive biologically based wellspring. This is exactly the

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conclusion Kohut reaches and it lies at the very heart of his criticism of classical theory,
as one can see as Kohut tries to capture the essence of his self psychological view of
“Tragic Man”:
striving, resourceful man, attempting to unfold his innermost self ... and warmly
committed to the next generation, to the son in whose unfolding and growth he joyfully
participates—thus experiencing man’s deepest and most central joy, that of being a link
in the chain of generations. (1982, p. 403)
SURREPTITIOUS EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY
IN PSYCHOANALYSIS
Kohut (1982) claimed that
self-psychology has freed itself from the distorted view of psychological man espoused
by traditional analysis [because it] ... does not pose as biology or psycho-biology but
accepts itself as psychology through and through. (p. 402)
Yet, even Kohut then went on to make a pitch to the biological evolutionary court in
support of his view of man! He claimed that because of Freud’s reliance on the
mechanistic dynamics of drives—“a vague and insipid biological concept” (1982, p.
401)—Freud actually failed to achieve his goal of studying homo natura, and that self
psychology comes closer to the actual human situation by defining “normality”
in analogy to “normal” anatomy, “normal” physiology, “normal” metabolism (a
normality so beautifully defined by Daly King (1945) as “that which functions in
accordance with its design”) ... (1982, p. 403, emphasis in original; also see Kohut,
1984, p. 191.)
Could one make a clearer evolutionary biological claim? The essence of evolutionary
biology can be defined as seeing how biological structures and behavior patterns are
adaptive, that is, serve functions in accordance with their designs. Kohut accurately
claims that intergenerational support, investment, joy, and empathy must be a basic part
of normal human functioning as it is part of the design of life, and that this fit between the
natural order and self psychology gives support to his psychological views.
This closely parallels the biological line of reasoning that Freud frequently used in
support of classical drive theory, and it is a main thesis of this paper that this is an
appropriate path for any psychology to follow. A far richer evolutionary schema is now
available and the time is ripe for its careful application to psychoanalytic thought.
Freud’s suggestion rings even truer today: “[among other things] ... a scheme of training
for analysts ... must include elements from ... biology and the study of evolution” (1927,
p. 252).
AN EVOLUTIONARY UNDERSTANDING OF
PARENTAL CARE APPLIED TO
PSYCHOANALYSIS
Compare Kohut’s self psychological view of parental devotion with Freud’s earlier
insight that the parental attitude is essentially narcissistic. Parents
are inclined to suspend in the child’s favor the operation of all the cultural acquisitions
which their own narcissism has been forced to respect, and to renew on his behalf the
claims to privileges which were long ago given up by themselves. ... the laws of nature
and of society shall be abrogated in his favor; he shall once more really be the center and
core of creation—“His Majesty the Baby”, as we once fancied ourselves. The child shall
fulfil those wishful dreams of the parents which they never carried out—the boy shall
become a great man and a hero in his father’s place, and the girl shall marry a prince as a

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tardy compensation for her mother. Parental love, which is so moving and at bottom so
childish, is nothing but the parents’ narcissism born again ... (1914, p. 91)
Freud was accurate in his observations: the parental attitude is a narcissistic one for the
child is, in the most literal sense, a selfobject to the parents—an external object that is
part of their genetic “flesh and blood” and whose well being and success enhances the
parent’s self (inclusive fitness).
In fact, this evolutionary view suggests another major selfobject line that needs to
be more fully developed: the selfobject function of the child, the student, the next
generation to the parental generation. Kohut describes in detail the misuse of the next
generation in the service of the parent’s pathological narcissism, but only briefly
mentions, and does not elaborate, the self-enhancing joy of sharing in the next
generation’s growth and development. That is, he does not focus on the parent’s healthy
narcissistic use of the child.*
A related phenomenon occurs in a properly conducted analysis wherein the
analyst’s self is enhanced when the patient is enabled to successfully remobilize resources
in the pursuit of further self development, even though the patient is not asked to
understand the analyst’s self-experience, or to imitate or idealize the analyst (Kohut,
1971; Kriegman & Solomon, 1985a, b).
Returning to Freud’s conception of parenthood, one finds an unmistakable
pejorative sense of illness and infantilism. Some of what Freud was describing can be
seen as similar to what Kohut talks about as the parents’ misuse of the child in order to
shore up their own defective sense of self. Yet, much of what Freud was referring to is
not a result of the parents’ defective narcissism. We know from a evolutionary biological
perspective that, to a degree, a parent’s relating to a child as an extension of
themselves—with unremitting and, at times, unbounded love—is an essential aspect of
healthy, adaptive functioning. Freud’s diminishing of parental joy and love to that
“which is so moving and at bottom so childish, is nothing but the parent’s narcissism born
again,” must be contrasted with Kohut’s “deepest and most central joy”.
Freud appears to have penetrated as close to the heart of the biological
evolutionary reality as one can get and still miss the point: those activities that are
biologically necessary for the minimally necessary inclusive fitness of almost all living
things, for example, parental care, must spring from the deepest most profound and
biologically ancient motivational sources. The model of an antagonist ego fighting to
suppress and repress infantile narcissism only to allow its expression when one is a
parent, as the motivational source of parental love, is not evolutionarily feasible, for it is
only possible in a species with a highly developed neo-cortex that has been overlaid on
the hungering, instinctual, tension reducing brain. Thus, it cannot provide us with a
model for parental investment in other species.
We can not conclude that the basic motivational forces that lead to the direct
expression of parental care in other animals have completely disappeared and have no
role in human parenting. What selective pressure could have led to such an outcome?
Freud vehemently rejected others’ attempts to separate humanity from the rest of the
animal world (Freud, 1917). We must not only face the evolutionary truth when it is
unpleasant, that is, when it argues for basic selfish, animalistic aspects of the human
*Of course, this is probably due to the fact that self psychology, like classical analysis, was developed in the
attempt to understand pathology and alleviate undue suffering.

9
psyche. We must also face the hard evolutionary truth when it is pleasant, that is, when it
argues that humans—like our animal relatives—are innately loving, caring, and nurturing
(Kriegman and Knight, 1988).
FREUD’S TELEOLOGICAL SOLUTION TO THE
PROBLEM OF ALTRUISM
Freud (1926b) seemed to understand the biological adaptive necessity of a basic
altruistic, “loving” stance in regard to others (Kriegman, 1988). However, this sentiment
found no place in his psychoanalytic theorizing as we see in Freud’s (1930) thoughts on
“loving ones’s neighbor,” and the inevitability of aggressiveness and the dysphoric
defense against it. Freud’s conceptualization of “altruistic” urges and basic social needs
is that they are secondary: due to aim-inhibited impulses, reaction formations (Kriegman,
1988), and anaclitic attachments. For example, Freud specified the relationship between
anaclitic attachments and civilization:
The libido attaches itself to the satisfaction of the great vital needs, and chooses as its
first objects the people who have a share in that process. And in the development of
mankind as a whole, just as in individuals, love alone acts as the civilizing factor in the
sense that it brings about a change from egoism to altruism. (1921, p. 103)
But, there is a certain circularity to Freud’s reasoning that has led to his being
accused of teleological thinking. Freud (1912/1913) used Lamarckian theory—in which
the acquired experience (including massive guilt) from an actual patricide was somehow
biologically passed on to all future generations—to find a way out of his own
drive/structure dilemma; a dilemma that finds clear expression when Freud tries to
elucidate the inevitable human discontent.
In the process of individual development ... the main accent falls mostly on the egoistic
urge (or the urge towards happiness); while the other urge, which may be described as a
“cultural” one, is usually content with the role of imposing restrictions ... (1930, p. 151)
In Freud’s view, from what source do these altruistic urge forming restrictions spring?
How can an altruistic urge be a “cultural one content on imposing restrictions,” when
“cultures” are not biological organisms capable of having urges? Though Freud may not
have been trying to be scientifically exact when he wrote this essentially philosophical
statement, since he had no inherent biological source within the individual for the creation
of civilization, he was forced to produce a Lamarckian, contrived explanation for the
civilizing “restrictions” (Kriegman, 1988).
Freud’s (1912/1913) attempt to explain civilization using Lamarckian theorizing
(Holmes, 1983) obscured the essential biological nature of human civilization that can no
more be considered extra-biological than the complex social organizations of ants, bees,
termites, wolves, lions, monkeys, or apes.* If one is allowed to step outside of the
drive/structure paradigm, social evolution theory (Trivers, 1971, 1985), animal studies
(Harlow, 1958), human infant studies (Bowlby, 1969; Lichtenberg, 1988; Sander, 1983;
Stern, 1983), the work of object relations theorists such as Fairbairn (1952) and Winnicott
(1965), and Kohut’s self psychology all suggest that these social urges have their own
primary motivational sources.
*It should be noted that though this Lamarckian theorizing gives rise to evolutionary notions that appear absurd
today, Lamarckian theory was an integral part of evolution theory in Freud’s day, and was even espoused by Darwin
himself (Brent, 1983; Sulloway, 1979).

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I am suggesting that it is our primitive biological core that gives rise to such
emotional experiences as the pleasure of empathic union with another, and the glow of
prideful joy in watching one’s children take steps forward in their development. Such
assumptions about human nature are inherent in self psychology.
THE EVOLUTIONARY CHALLENGE TO
CLASSICAL THEORY: TRIVERS’S
RECIPROCAL ALTRUISM
At first glance, altruistic behavior directed toward nonkin would appear to
contradict the basic self-serving interests predicted by evolution theory. However,
Trivers (1971) developed the concept of “reciprocal altruism,” which is based on the
notion that an altruistic act can at some point be “paid back” to the altruist.
In an earlier paper (Kriegman 1988), I presented ethological data demonstrating
reciprocal altruism. Following Trivers (1971), I described the mutually beneficial
relationship between cleaner fish that enter the mouth and gills of hosts to clean parasites
from them. Another paradigmatic demonstration of reciprocal altruism was provided by
Wilkinson’s (1984) study of vampire bats for whom starvation occurs within days of
failure to feed, and for whom failure to feed is not an uncommon occurrence. He was
able to demonstrate reciprocal food sharing (via regurgitation) between unrelated bats
when the “altruist” was in good condition and the beneficiary was in serious need.
Wilkinson showed that such a system is a great advantage for the altruist because the
altruistic act is frequently reciprocated when the current altruist is the one in need.
“TIT-FOR-TAT”: THE COOPERATIVE WINNING
STRATEGY
Based on Trivers’ model, Axelrod and Hamilton (1981) used game theory to prove
that such a reciprocal strategy can outcompete more selfish strategies. They used a
modified version of a game that has been extensively studied by social scientists,
Prisoner’s Dilemma.
This game presented players with opportunities: (1) to attempt to cooperate, (2) to
selfishly attempt to take advantage of the other player’s willingness to cooperate (i.e., to
cheat), or (3) to protect oneself or retaliate by refusing to cooperate with a cheater.
Successfully “cheating” a cooperator “paid off” the best (+5). Successful mutual
cooperation was next (+3). Punishing or self-protecting refusals to cooperate enabled the
player to protect their own “investment” (+1). Finally, being cheated when one attempted
to cooperate resulted in the worst outcome (+0). (In Figure 1, the top number in each box
indicates my/our payoff and the bottom number indicates theirs.) There were a number of
rounds of play in which each player made a decision prior to knowing what the other had
decided to do on that particular round. After each round the results were made known to
the players.
Robert Axelrod conducted a computer tournament of strategies submitted by game
theorists in economics, sociology, political science, and mathematics. Though some of
the strategies were quite intricate, the winning strategy (the highest score averaged against
all challengers) was one of the simplest—a basically cooperative strategy called “Tit for
Tat.” Tit for Tat’s strategy was simply to cooperate on the first move and thereafter to do
whatever the other player did on the preceding move. Thus, the strategy is to initially
“announce” an intention to cooperate and then to let the other player know that cheating
will not lead to a gain. Tit for Tat is quick to forgive no matter how many times the other

11
player has cheated—just one indication of a willingness to cooperate from the other
player leads Tit for Tat to try cooperation again.
TIT FOR TAT is a strategy of cooperation based on reciprocity ... it was never the first
to defect, it was provocable into retaliation by a defection of the other, and it was
forgiving after just one act of retaliation. (Axelrod and Hamilton, p. 1393)
After circulating the results of the first round, 62 entries were received from six countries
to compete in the second round. The winner of the second round, Tit for Tat! Axelrod
and Hamilton went on to show how a “population” of strategies could be invaded by Tit
for Tat. If high scores were indicative of differential success in survival and replication,
after a number of rounds of play (a number of “generations”), Tit for Tat would replace
the original strategies.
They essentially used game theory to present a mathematical model of how, under
certain conditions, cooperation between unrelated individuals could evolve. They were
able to show that Tit for Tat could hold its own and win in a population of mixed
strategies. In addition, they were able to show that once Tit for Tat became a significant
part of the existing population of strategies, it would become an even more successful
strategy as the reciprocal altruists would benefit from their mutual cooperation while
being able to protect themselves from cheaters who would be excluded from reciprocal
exchanges. Indeed, they were able to show that selfish strategies would be unable to
reinvade successfully!
Of course, human interactions are not this simple. It is not always possible to
detect cheaters or to evaluate the degree of cooperation one is getting. Opportunities for
cheating are widespread and there are other motivations outside of the reciprocal
exchange system, for example, there are kin ties that are not dependent on reciprocity
(though they too are apparently influenced by it). Yet, it is easy to think of numerous
situations in which reciprocal exchanges benefit the cooperators by providing advantages
simply unavailable to individuals acting on their own, that is,

12
situations in which the cost to the altruist is significantly less than the beneficiary’s gain.
If this sounds like a perpetual motion machine, where the output magically exceeds the
input, consider just a few human examples such as a traditional barnraising, the act of
helping an unrelated lost child find his or her way back home, and most forms of human
charity ... People who can trade such acts will have a significant advantage over
nonaltruists or those excluded from reciprocal arrangements. (Kriegman, 1988, p. 267)
Even more remarkable is the counterintuitive fact that—like vampire bats who
without reciprocal exchanges would be in constant danger of starvation—people living on
the verge of starvation often will share food with unrelated others. For example, Lapierre
(1985) documents numerous examples of regular, reliable reciprocal exchanges among
non-kin residents in a Calcutta slum. In such circumstances, powerful
friendship/reciprocal exchange systems can develop in and around competing systems of
cheaters (also see Levi, 1986, and others who have written about the holocaust
concentration camps).*
Another powerful demonstration of reciprocal exchanges in humans occurred
during the early years of World War I in the trenches. Much to the consternation of the
generals, the “disease of cooperation” between the opposing soldiers broke out all along
the line. Stationed week after week and month after month in the same spot facing the
same “enemy” the ideal conditions were present for the generation of reciprocal altruism.
Soldiers shot to miss. Troops left the trenches and worked at repairing them in full view
and within range of enemy soldiers while they passively looked on. Christmas was
celebrated together! One striking incident occurred when in one area an artillery burst
exploded sending both sides diving for cover. After several moments, a brave German
soldier called out to the other side and apologized saying that his side had nothing to do
with it, “It was those damn Prussian artillerymen.” Note that artillery is farther from the
line and the mutual association with trading of beneficial acts (shooting to miss) was not
available to them. Finally, the generals solved this thorny problem by ordering random
raids (and shooting those that refused) that broke down the mutual trust and cooperation
that had evolved.
The skeptic could argue that the human examples are anomalies, and of course, we
don’t expect humans to behave as fish, vampire bats, reciprocal altruist monkeys (de
Waal, 1982), or relatively simple computer programs. However, what is demonstrated by
the evolutionary analysis are the necessary prerequisites for the evolution of reciprocal
altruism: (1) high frequency of association, (2) reliability of association over time, and
(3) the ability of two organisms to behave in ways that benefit the other. This
evolutionary line of thought is quite powerful in posing a direct challenge to the classical
notion that “guilt” is necessary for civilization (Kriegman, 1988). The prerequisites for
the evolution of reciprocal altruism, that have been shown in other species to be capable
of shaping extremely cooperative behaviors, are present in our species, and are possibly
present to a greater degree than in any other species!
*Yet, of course, this makes sense: during our phylogenetic history when conditions were extremely harsh there
was no “cushion.” There was no Medicaid, welfare, life insurance, or disability insurance. Given the physical
dangers, it was unlikely that one could go through a normal lifetime without needing help from genetically unrelated
neighbors or in-laws. It is only in times of surplus and physical security that one can “afford to” live independently
of one’s neighbors. Thus, the demise of the “community” as affluence allows people to risk not even knowing their
neighbors. Somewhat paradoxically this suggests that the less one has, the more likely one is to be willing to share a
greater portion of what one does have!

13
Trivers was able to show that altruistic behavior between human beings can confer
a powerful adaptive advantage to the altruist and may have been selected for, along with
and at the same time, that the selective pressures were forcing increased cranial
development.
A long memory and a capacity for individual recognition are well developed in man. We
might therefore expect reciprocal altruism to have played an important part in human
evolution. Trivers goes so far as to suggest that many of our psychological
characteristics—envy, guilt, gratitude, sympathy etc.—have been shaped by natural
selection for improved ability to cheat, to detect cheats, and to avoid being thought to be
a cheat. Of particular interest are “subtle cheats” who appear to be reciprocating, but
who consistently pay back slightly less than they receive. It is even possible that man’s
swollen brain, and his predisposition to reason mathematically, evolved as a mechanism
of ever more devious cheating, and ever more penetrating detection of cheating in others.
(Dawkins, 1976, p. 202)
Note that this view is clearly consistent with conflict. However, we now see conflict
within a larger social network of kin and reciprocal altruism. It is now widely believed
that human intelligence may have evolved primarily for social uses—to allow for the
successful trading of altruistic acts (friendships, mutual parasite control [grooming],
protective and/or aggressive alliances, economic [business] arrangements, etc.) without
being cheated—as opposed to having arisen for tool manipulation.
Traditional conflict psychology clearly sees altruistic behavior as a recent
development brought into being after increased brain size began to lead to the formation
of civilization, that is, civilization, made possible by increased intelligence, leads to
pressure to control instinctual behavior, resulting in altruism. In contrast, evolutionary
theory—and ethological evidence—suggests that it is likely that altruism was an early
phylogenetic development that in turn shaped the rapid development of the “swollen”
human brain.* This view reinforces part of the self psychological conception of the
human psyche, and suggests that the traditional psychoanalytic emphasis on guilt may not
be sufficient to explain altruistic behavior fully.
DRIVE/STRUCTURE VERSUS RELATIONAL/
STRUCTURE: AN EVOLUTIONARY
BIOLOGICAL OVERVIEW
Using evolutionary biology we are able to begin to formulate a vision of a
psychological nature of our species that is consistent with our only scientific theory of
creation. We are then able to reevaluate the “schism” in psychoanalytic theory.
Evolution theory presents us with a psychobiological picture of the human organism that
includes both (1) an inherently instinctual primary driveness that protects the interests of
each individual and ensures that each of us will strive to engage in certain “driven”
patterns of behavior that are essential for our inclusive fitness, and (2) an inherently basic
and primary relational orientation that is also essential to the adaptive self-interests of this
social organism, for it ensures that each individual will strive to be included in the
protective envelope of the resource laden, human community, even if this means
sacrificing some driven pleasure-seeking desires.**
*The evolution of intelligence and altruism is examined in greater detail in Kriegman (1988).
**These competing primary irreducible orientations also find expression in Balint’s (1956) relational/structure
model in which libido is both object seeking and pleasure seeking; and in G. S. Klein’s (1976) competing aim
systems. Kriegman and Slavin (1989, 1990) present some clinical implications and the basic framework for an

14
This need for inclusion in the self-selfobject milieu is not reducible to “tension
reducing” drive gratifications, though pleasure seeking and pain avoidance surely play a
role in forming and maintaining important aspects of human ties. The longing for
inclusion in the self-selfobject milieu—which can contribute to instinctual repression
through the need to be perceived as a lovable reciprocal altruist, and the fear of losing
such a valuation—can be phenomenologically observed as an irreducible sense of
well-being and/or joy when grounded in a well functioning self-selfobject milieu, and
irreducible disintegration anxiety in the absence of such.
Freud’s Confusion of Proximal and Distal Causes
This relational need is related to the “fear of loss of love” (Freud, 1926a), and
there is clearly a sound adaptive basis for it in evolution theory. Freud (1930) was correct
in seeing that what is feared is somehow connected to lost opportunities for drive
gratifications: that what can be lost are physical, material things (including people), and
that these essential material resources/objects are why one must compromise one’s desires
in order to participate in civilization. What Freud failed to see is that this was the distal
cause for the fear of loss of love. It is a description of the selective pressure present
throughout the history of our species: those that feared loss of love, and thus were willing
to forego some of their more selfish pleasures, were seen as more trustworthy reciprocal
altruists and obtained the powerful adaptive advantage of being more fully included in
reciprocal exchanges. Those who did not develop this fear were less successful in leaving
viable copies of their genetic material behind, for they tended to be excluded from
reciprocal exchanges, for example, friendships, economic exchanges, alliances, and the
like.
However, this is the distal cause or the selective pressure that shaped relational
needs. It is not a description of the psychological mechanism that was shaped by that
pressure. The proximal cause for a psychological event or a behavior is the shaped
structure or mechanism operating in the present. I am suggesting that a powerful
mechanism for ensuring the inclusion in the reciprocal exchange system (the drive
gratifying, life maintaining, and life-replicating human community) appears to be the
irreducible need for self-selfobject relatedness which includes a “fear of loss of love,” for
example, shame or disintegration anxiety when selfobjects are disapproving or
unavailable. The child does not necessarily have the anaclitically derived experience
(either consciously or unconsciously) of “Oh, no! Now the `other one’ doesn’t love me
and I will not be able to gratify my tension based needs and thus I will die or be
overwhelmed by instinctual anxiety.” Rather the mechanism controlling the child’s
experience may well be the fear of being disconnected, unloved, and abandoned, even
though the former description—of loss of opportunities for drive gratification—may be
essentially more accurate in depicting the historical selective pressures (distal causes) that
shaped the current individual’s proximal need for a stable self-selfobject milieu and the
disintegration anxiety that results from its absence or inadequacy.
Freud appears to have confused the distal and proximal causes. Often he
accurately identified the distal cause and then “projected” it into the currently operating
human psyche and referred to it as a proximal cause, thus, giving rise to teleological
reasoning. By confusing these two levels of analysis, Freud tries to proximally reduce
evolutionary perspective on psychoanalytic theories. Slavin and Kriegman (1990) present a framework for an
evolutionary psychoanalysis that can provide a true synthesis of the drive/structure-relational/structure dialectic.

15
one into the other! Thus, in Freud’s notion of anaclitically derived attachments to others,
the human need for relatedness (a proximal mechanism) is seen as being reducible into
the proximal need for drive gratifications obtained through human relationships. The
latter may be more accurately conceived of as a distal cause for the development of the
proximal need for human relatedness.
This is not to imply that self-serving drive gratifications play a relatively
unimportant role in human relationships. Obviously they do not. The evolutionary
perspective simply suggests that powerful social needs—such as the narcissistic self-
selfobject strivings described by self psychology—are biologically ancient and thus have
an enormous selective history shaping them, that is, that they are extremely unlikely to be
recent evolutionary developments that are reducible into a more primary asocial
drivenness.*
Modern applications of evolutionary theory to psychoanalysis must avoid repeating
Freud’s conceptual error. For example, Nesse (1990) falls prey to the same confusion
between distal and ultimate causes when he uses evolutionary theory to maintain a more
classical position. He refers to altruism as a “defense” that is used to deceive others.
Altruistic motives have no independent existence, and are seen as a transformation of
more selfish motives. Nesse’s argument is that those who were able to hide these selfish
motives benefitted by being perceived to be reciprocal altruists, and thus obtained the
benefits of trading reciprocal acts. Thus short-term gain is exchanged for long-term gain,
or for a reciprocation to come in the future. As in Freud’s reasoning, Nesse has identified
the most likely ultimate explanation for this type of altruism, that is, he has accurately
identified the selective pressure that shaped the trait: those who forfeited short term gains
for greater long term gains were probably more successful and thus altruism was shaped.
The misplacing of ultimate causes into the presently functioning organism—as if
ultimate causes are currently operating as proximal causes—enables both Nesse and
Freud to see the ultimate selfish, gene promoting utility of social attachments, including
compassion and altruism. However, this ultimate utility is the distal cause not the
proximal product. The proximal product is often a genuine wish to remain connected to
another, to share another’s experience empathically, and compassionately to aid others in
need. Only by imputing the ultimate cause into the current day as a proximal cause
(operating in the individual’s unconscious) can the moralistic negativity of the classical
paradigm be retained.
The “knife cuts both ways.” If, as Freud (1917) insisted, we must face our
instinctual drivenness in order not to deny the narcissistic injury inherent in the theory of
evolution—that we are instinctual creatures profoundly united with the rest of the animal
kingdom—must we not also face the “hard” truth that “caring” investments in others,
behaviors that appear to indicate rudimentary compassion, and both kin and reciprocal
altruism have all been shaped in more “primitive” species? In fact, when we begin to
understand what shapes reciprocal altruism in nature (the prerequisites mentioned above),
we come face to face with the “hard” fact that these conditions are present in greater
proportion for our species than any other known species. Therefore, must we not accept
the fact that we may be one of the most reciprocal altruistic—if not the most reciprocal
altruistic—species in the entire animal kingdom? Furthermore, when the clinical data
*See Kriegman and Slavin (1989) and Trivers (1985) for a more thorough discussion of the timeframe for human
social evolution.

16
point to an internal experience that is inconsistent with the pleasure principle
drive/structure model, must we not reconsider it, as self psychology has done?
SUMMARY
Freud’s creation of psychoanalysis was, in part, a reaction to the societal, religious
morality that denied the ubiquitous drivenness that repeatedly confronted him, the
essential animal nature of Homo sapiens as had been recently made clear by the theory of
evolution. For example, Freud (1933) on aggression,
It is a general ... that conflicts of interest between men are settled by the use of violence.
This is true of the whole animal kingdom, from which men have no business to exclude
themselves. (p. 204)
Though evolutionary theory was in its infancy, incompletely understood even by
its creator, Freud’s commitment to facing its truths led to an unswerving stance in
reaction to attempts to deny the narcissistic injury inherent in his psychoanalytic
discoveries. He insisted on trying to reinterpret virtually all social behaviors in the light
of his new theory, and he and his followers have stretched his drive/structure model to its
limits. Yet, as we have seen, this evolutionary creation—the human psyche—cannot be
fully accounted for utilizing the vicissitudes of Freud’s two instincts.
What we come to appreciate when we bring the perspective of the theory of
evolution to the relational/structure versus drive/structure debate, is that the debate is
about the two sides of the same coin. Like this metaphor, in the case of the selfish, yet
social, human animal, you cannot have a one-sided coin. Both drives and relationships
are biologically inherent and have their structuralizing effect upon the supraordinate self.
A modern evolutionary biological, psychoanalytic conception of conflicts and drives may
actually be closer to the adaptive/functional tone of aspects of the self psychological
paradigm than to the traditional perspective.*
As human animals we are inherently in conflict over our irreducible biologically
based driven, asocial needs (i.e., self-enhancing pleasure seeking and avoidance of
unpleasure) and our irreducible biologically based needs for a self-selfobject milieu. A
dynamic tension between these two motivational pulls is adaptive (has been selected for)
due to the great flexibility it provides in enabling this large brained, nonreflexively
driven, social organism fully to exploit all aspects of its environment in pursuit of its own
best interest. In its clinical application, this viewpoint sees our patients caught between
their basic self-enhancing instinctual drivenness for sensual pleasure and power, and their
irreducible self-enhancing need for a self-selfobject milieu. The conflict between the two
visions of human nature—the drive/structure and the relational/structure models—is thus
seen to be part of the essence of human nature itself, as the supraordinate self carries on
the ancient biological struggle for inclusive fitness.
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