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A MAJOR DIFFICULTY in the description of the course of a psychoanalysis is the absence of a comprehensive, commonly accepted framework that can be used to set in order the diverse data that is being accumulated during the course of the work. This has made it difficult for analysts to compare their results and to make meaningful longitudinal studies.
Anna Freud (1969) has highlighted the importance of looking at psychoanalytic data from both the metapsychological and clinical viewpoints. The metapsychological constructs, she asserted, foster a multidimensional approach that helps organize diverse aspects of complex clinical phenomena and permits the full meaning of the phenomena to emerge. Kohut (1970) further delineated this position:
Anna Freud stated that the most important contribution which institutes can make to the maintenance of genuine psychoanalytic research is through the enhancement of the students' capacity to think metapsychologically. This view was interpreted by the Committee [on Scientific Activities] as meaning that the basic metapsychological