Nervous and mental disease. Genetics and the future of psychoanalysis

Genetics has been associated with psychoanalytic theory since the earliest writings of Freud. Innate factors of constitution and heredity have been recognized in studies of adults and children, both retrospective and prospective. Contemporary genetics has become a science of gene expression and control, not merely of transmission, and its influence will illuminate processes of interaction in the development of affect and personality. As new genetic proposals and practices influence the choices and meanings of human life, they will have a profound effect on man's decisions, values, and self-image, and psychoanalysis will need to reaffirm its interpreative role. Finally, more effective prevention and treatment will be based on better appreciation of the interacting roles of genotype and environment.