Discussion

IN 1915 Freud introduced the term "metapsychology" with the following words: "We see how we have gradually been led into adopting a third point of view in our account of physical phenomena. Besides the dynamic and the topographical points of view, we have adopted the economic one. This endeavours to follow out the vicissitudes of amounts of excitation and to arrive at least at some relative estimate of their magnitude.

"It will not be unreasonable to give a special name to this way of regarding our subject-matter, for it is the consummation of psycho-analytic research. I propose that when we have succeeded in describing a psychical process in its dynamic, topographical and economic aspects, we should speak of it as a metapsychological presentation" (11, p. 181).

Webster (1953) defines "metapsychology" as having to do with the relationship between mind and body. Since "quantities of excitation" refer to the energies of the instinctual (and, in 1915, of the self-preservative, or ego) drives, a concept which Freud considered to be on the borderline between mind and body, it is possible that the dictionary definition just cited influenced his choice of the term "metapsychology." However, it is by no means certain that this is the case. "Metapsychology" is not apparently a widely used word, except in the field of psychoanalysis, since it is listed neither in the shorter Oxford English Dictionary (1933) nor in its American counterpart twenty years later. Moreover, in 1901 Freud (9) used the word in a very different sense as an analogue