Are Mental Functions Hierarchical?

This essay does not conclude with a definitive answer to the question raised in its title; it is more of an exploration of the question, Are mental functions hierarchical? What I present is part of a continuing dialogue with John Gedo. As he probably recognizes from my review of his books over the years, I have had some reservations regarding the concept of hierarchy as applied to the model of the mind. I have had the intutive sense that mental functions may not be ordered hierarchically. Or, if they would be hierarchical, then what exactly this means needs elaboration. However, one's critical faculties must rest on something more than intution, so this essay also represents a dialogue with myself, an attempt to uncover why the concept of hierarchy troubles me when it is applied to mental functions.

At the outset it should be stated that in our contemporary, highly pluralistic, conceptually divided, psychoanalytic culture, John Gedo and I share very basic values. We both believe that psychoanalysis is biologically rooted, but in addition we believe that the biology of psychoanalysis should be brought up to date. That is to say, it should be consistent with what is known of the functiong of the brain at the end of the twentieth century. It would be a depreciation of Freud's achievement to do anything less. We also share another basic value-we have never shied away from treating disturbed and disturbing patients psychoanalytically. Those of us who have had this experience will think differently about psychoanalysis; it is an antidote to any tendency toward preciosity.

Hierarchical concepts pervade biological thinking. Biology encompasses a multitude of hierarchical levels, including macromolecules, genes, cells, tissues, organs, individuals, population dynamics, and so forth. Indeed the eminent evolutionist Ernst Mayr (1997) notes that it is the hierarchical organization of living systems that clearly differentiates the animate from the inanimate. He observes that these