ABSTRACT
The Darwinian inheritance of the British Independents must be underestimated: survival in a habitat or environment is an abiding concern. Classical psychoanalysis saw human development as governed by instinctual strivings and their vicissitudes. Anna Freud’s developmental theory was biologically informed and envisaged development as a succession of typical instinctual patterns which facilitate human growth. The interest in environmental effects upon the individual may also have its roots in the British empirical tradition. Jones, at heart a Darwin-orientated evolutionist, was nevertheless particularly interested in environmental influences: his interest lay in libidinal development. The environment may help or hinder pathogenic aggressiveness, but in the last analysis it is peripheral. In contrast to this, the main thrust of Independent thinking has been more biological. Anxiety arising from fear of environmental provision is itself the pathogen. Aggression in all its varieties may stem from this and thus is rooted in survival mechanisms.
