Psychopatologia popędu zachowawczego i demokracja. Romana Markuszewicza projekt psychiatrii biologiczno-społecznej z lat 1945–1946
Psychopathology of the Preservation Drive and Democracy. Roman Markuszewicz and his Sociobiological Psychiatry Project of 1945–1946

Summary/Abstract: The subject-matter of this paper comprises the scientific achievements of Roman Markuszewicz, a Polish psychoanalytic psychiatrist who drew up his own version of psychoanalysis in the nineteen-thirties, based on the opposition of the drive of self-preservation and the libido. He expounded this theory in papers published after the war, accentuating the fact that an individual’s life activity (work) plays a positive role in their psychological development, thanks to which the individual gains support in society. Because of this, Markuszewicz replaced the concept of the self-preservation drive, egocentric in character, with the concept of preservation drive, which establishes a bond between the individual and society. In his new version of psychiatric theory, which he called sociobiological, Markuszewicz attempted independently to link psychoanalysis with Marxism. Although viewed from today the project comes across as utopian, one can also discern within it groundbreaking work reflected in similar attempts undertaken in the nineteen-fifties by Erich Fromm and Herbert Marcuse towards constructing a social theory based on psychoanalysis.

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