ABSTRACT
Any attempt to understand the springs of human behaviour in all its complexities in both health and disease must, sooner or later, confront the problem of human motivation. Dramatists, novelists, and poets were exploring the fields of human love and hate, heroism and destructiveness, long before scientists began to turn their attention to such concerns. Clearly there are many types of innate behaviour, from simple in-built reflexes to complicated patterns which depend more on learning, such as maternal caring behaviour. There are also basic physiological needs for air, food, and water, which, if not satisfied, lead to powerfully motivated behaviour. But ordinarily, in contemporary Western society, we are not deprived of such needs and they do not give rise to conflict. We are concerned more with those areas of motivation where conflict does arise.
