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The title of this contribution could just as easily have been ‘Reflections on the Freudian Century’ so extensive and profound have been the influence of this one man and his ideas. That psychoanalysis has persevered long enough to celebrate its centennial constitutes a rare achievement in itself. Psychoanalysis, despite the continuing attacks against it, has become an integral part of universal culture. It not only enjoys an established position in the fields of medicine, behavioural sciences and critical studies, albeit not without controversy; it has penetrated into the interstices of our daily lives in countless ways, whether we consider the rise in the valorisation our culture affords individual emotional life, the advocacy of children, the rise in female consciousness, the change in family values, the sexual revolution, etc. In fact, there was a time not so long ago when virtually every department head of psychiatry in American universities had been trained as an analyst. There has occurred a vast recessional from that golden age in our country. The rise in importance of neurobiology and psychopharmacology was one notable reason. Another was the natural attrition of an idea which had not renewed itself in the temper of the times. Much of what I wish to say has to do with the theme of psychoanalytic attrition and renewal, that is, a reassessment of the essence of Freud's contributions with the idea of conducting samples of respectful deconstructions that might lead to new avenues of exploration.
One of the problems of any new field is the inherent tendency of stagnation and entropy to invade it. I believe that this is one of the principal meanings Freud had in mind when he conceived of his unfortunately ill-received death instinct (Freud 1920). (Yet Freud may probably have been on to something which his followers failed to understand and which Klein may have overenthusiastically misunderstood - that the quintessence of Freud's concept of the death instinct refers