ABSTRACT
A new conceptual framework for psychiatry has emerged in based on Darwinian theory. This new emergent science, which combines the insights of ethology and sociobiology, defines human nature—its psychology and psychopathology—in terms of its evolutionary origins. The family is the fundamental unit in society. And the mother-child bond is crucial for healthy or "abnormal" psychological development. The infant's innate structures will anticipate, in some way, the behaviour of parents towards it. In neurotics, there is a history of dysfunctional family dynamics, of deficient parental care, such as parental abuse, separation, loss, unresponsiveness, induction of guilt etc., which frustrates the archetypal intent and the imperatives inherent in the maturing Self. In Waddington's words, epigenetic pathways exist along which ontogenesis proceeds. This corresponds to Jung's concept of the Self, employed to designate the totality of the psyche, the sum total of archetypal potential.
