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WHILE A PERSPECTIVE OF PSYCHIC REALISM, as suggested in the first part of this paper, has definite implications for psychoanalytic metapsychology, some of which I shall consider below, psychic realism is essentially focussed on the unique and shareable aspects of the clinical psychoanalytic inquiry. That focus points up the primary reality of the actual clinical experience, in contrast to the interpretive and speculative symbolism of the wide variety of terms and trends of metapsychology. As Freud once remarked, the unconscious is "the true psychical reality." And whether we now subscribe to his formulations of the meanings and the metaphors of unconscious psychic experience, it is, nonetheless, still the case that psychoanalysis is predominantly concerned with the empirical and the systematic study of "the true psychical reality."
Even the most radical clinical psychoanalytic empiricism, on the other hand, requires the introduction of some interpretive and speculative metapsychology. The therapeutic power of simplicity and directness in the immediacies of the psychoanalytic process is undeniable. Yet, if that power is not to be turned irrational and become self-serving, it must be bounded by the realistic and objective conditions of the inquiry.
Hence, a perspective of psychic realism on the relation of conscious and unconscious psychic experience. In this second part of this two-part paper2, I discuss the two central terms of any psychoanalytic