Chapter 3. Elements of Psycho-Analysis

The elements are functions of the personality.1 Of them all it may be said that each is a function of something else and each has a function. In so far as each is a function the term ‘function’ has a meaning similar to that with which it is associated in mathematics. It is a variable in relation to other variables in terms of which it may be expressed and on the value of which its own value depends. In so far as each function has a function the term ‘function’ is used as the name for a set of actions, physical or mental, governed by or directed to a purpose. Whenever I use the term ‘function’ I use it to denote something which is and has a function. In so far as it is a function it has factors: in so far as it has a function it has aims.2

For the present I propose that the elements of psychoanalysis are all without exception functions using the term in the sense I have just adumbrated. The sign representing an abstraction must therefore represent a function that is unknowable although its primary and secondary qualities (in the Kantian sense) are. As I propose to consider the elements as observable phenomena it must be assumed that I am talking about primary and secondary qualities of elements and not the abstractions or signs by which I represent them. What, of all that can be seen in the course of any analysis, are we to choose as the functions of personality that are also elements of psychoanalysis? The choice is already limited by the criteria I have proposed (Chapter 2, p. 11). We must now limit it further because the element must be

a function in the sense that I have proposed for this term and, furthermore, must be ‘seen’ in the course of analytic work. But how are the qualities of elements to be pronounced ‘seeable’ in view of the notorious fact that some analysts purport to be able to see thi