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Interest in the “general theory” of psychoanalysis seems to be revived periodically, despite the many criticisms and rejections to which it has been subjected. Perhaps it reappears, Phoenix-like, as each new generation of psychoanalysts takes the field and seeks to reassure itself of its affiliation with the spirit of science. This book is yet another attempt to reformulate Freud's metapsychology, this time with great rigor and precision.
Is psychoanalytic metapsychology a system of explanation of mentalistically described facts based on known and inferred characteristics of the nervous system? Is the solution of the mind-brain dilemma actually achieved, or at least achievable, by a dynamically conceived psychology?
Metapsychology is viewed by Cordelia Schmidt-Hellerau as the intermediate or linking theory between the clinical facts of psychoanalysis and the “close-to-the-data” theories that arise from them, on the one hand, and, on the other, the emerging theories of brain function. Clinical facts, she says, are experiential observations that are essentially descriptive, while theory is based on cognition and generates understanding. If clinical psychoanalytic formulations may be regarded as primarily dependent for their language and form on an empirical methodology, metapsychology, being more abstract, formal, and observation-distant, is essentially deductive. Both approaches may be regarded as scientific and therefore legitimate and worthy of serious attention. To illustrate the emphasis on its abstractness, Schmidt-Hellerau uses the analogy of Mandelbrot sets, the elaborate images generated by computers and based on simple mathematical formulas. The images resemble the enormous complexity of living organisms, while the formulas are