The biological foundations of fixation: a general theory

This article attempts to develop a generalized theory of fixations. A literature survey reveals three levels of description: physiological, systemic, and cognitive-behavioral. Examples of each level are provided, followed by a focus on cognitive-behavioral fixations. A cognitive-behavioral fixation is typically an obsessive preoccupation with a single idea, impulse, or aim that interferes with normal behavior. However, this definition is argued to be too narrow, as fixations are fundamental to all biological systems and only become maladaptive when something goes wrong. Fixations form the basis of stable cognition and behavior through projection, where the organism imposes cognitive content on itself and the world to form stable percepts. This leads to the idea that the brain functions as a fixation-projection machine. The second half of this article briefly examines religious fixations, the most pervasive in terms of cognition and behavior, focusing on how children give up belief in Santa Claus but retain belief in God into adulthood. The concept of a fixation network is used to explain the mechanism behind this phenomenon. This article concludes with the hypothesis that a fixation network can only be weakened by first dissolving the auxiliary fixations that have accrued to core fixations in the network.