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Congress Opening // Opening Lecture
Wednesday, 25 November 2009 // 10.15 – 12.15 h // Hall 2 (Saal 2)
Thomas Elbert
Congress Opening
The status quo of psychiatry
Frank Schneider (Aachen, Germany)
Congress President
President of the German Association for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy (DGPPN)
DrE
Hans Heimann Award: DGPPN Dissertation Award
Carmina Mundi (Aachen, Germany)
Opening Lecture
Of Hunters and the Hunted: How Life­threatening
Experiences Modify Brain and Behaviour
Thomas Elbert (Constance, Germany)
DrE
Why are savagery and violence so omnipresent among humans? The observations presented
here are based both on studies carried out in the crisis regions of this world and also on
considerations of evolutionary biology and behavioural neuroscience. According to these,
the hunting behaviour in male hominids has been developing since the Pliocene, that is for
several million years.
The reward due to social and, ultimately, reproductive success led to the hunt for bigger and
bigger trophies. The requirement was that hunting behaviour became appetitive, a desire
that made deprivations, pains, blood, sweat and, ultimately, the willingness to kill tolerable.
Evolutionary development into the “perversion” of the urge to hunt, that is to say the transfer
of this urge to members of one’s own species, was nurtured by the resultant advantage
of personal and social power. While breakdown of the intraspecies inhibition towards killing
would endanger the species in animals, controlled inhibition was enabled in humans in that
higher regulatory systems, such as frontal lobe based executive functions, prevent the involuntary
derailment of hunting behaviour. If this control – such as in child soldiers for
exam ple – is not learned, then brutality towards members of one’s own species remains
appealing. A better understanding of the behavioural and neurobiological mechanisms
of hunting ought also, therefore, to lead to a better understanding of barbaric behaviour:
Hunting for men – more rarely for women – is appetitive and emotionally exciting with the
subsequent release of messenger substances (endorphins) which can arouse feelings of
euphoria and alleviate pain. This is also brought about by bonding and social rites (e. g. initiation)
setting up the readiness for both hunting and violent disputes. Big game hunting as
well as attack of other communities is more successful in groups – men also perceive this as
more pleasurable. This may explain the fascination with gladiatorial combat, football and
computer games, that is with pleasures, which appear to be largely restricted to men. Blood
must flow in order to kill. It then becomes an appetitive cue. It may be possible on this basis
to explain atrocities like the cutting off of ears, lips or genitalia such as we have observed up
to the present day.
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DGPPN Congress 2009 – English Programme