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«At present, our overall theoretical framework does not come up to our need for understanding of clinical phenomena (which develops in a relatively independent way), nor to the deeper need to construct a science of mind. But if we really intend to construct such a science, we cannot abandon our search for the sort of consistent, unifying theory that Freud dreamed of and began to create».
The aim of this research is to initiate a systematic investigation of psychoanalytic theory. In the current panorama of psychoanalysis, psychogenetic conceptions, pathogenetic conceptions, and conceptions of treatment all coexist, offering diverse and sometimes incompatible explanatory principles from which equally diverse and incompatible clinical practices are derived.
In the absence of precise formulations and criteria for comparison, this diversity does not take on the character of a true scientific pluralism, but instead leads to a sort of «commensalism» in which the different schools and traditions live alongside one another without either comparison or modification. In the face of divergent hypotheses and theories, a scientific community addresses the contradictions not by invoking the sacred right to pluralism - that two mutually contradictory theories cannot both be true is a question of logic not of pluralism - but by promoting investigation and comparison in such a way as to achieve an advancement of knowledge.