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(1968). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 16:749-782

Freud's Considerations of the Mental Processes—An Attempt at a Unifying Treatment

David Zern

My life has been aimed at one goal only: to infer or to guess how the mental apparatus is constructed and what forces interplay and counteract in it.

ATTEMPTING TO DIGEST Freud's thinking on a particular subject presents specific problems of a magnitude and quality apparently surpassing any like endeavor on another author. The sheer quantity of his writings is exceptional and thus presents some obvious problems in condensation. However, we must add to the mere difficulty in size both the fact of the generally significant changes in Freud's thinking over time and the almost total absence of any attempt (certainly any reliable attempt) on his part to provide any personal commentary on the actual development of the theory. In effect, then, we are left with more than twenty volumes of extremely perceptive—though effectively unorganized—insights into human behavior compiled over a period of time approaching half a century.

A direct, though probably tedious, attempt to cata

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