Comment on Dr Leclaire's Paper

Dr Leclaire tackles in his paper some basic problems which have been in the focus of metapsychological studies practically from the beginning of psycho-analysis, namely the problems of mental energy, of the drive as a mental force, and of the relationship between pleasure and change of tension, i.e. the problem of energy quanta. He rightly points out that the psycho-analytic term 'economic' covers two areas of psycho-analytic conceptualization. One is the quantitative consideration of mental phenomena; the other is the mode and principles of discharge. Leclaire considers only the first meaning of the term in his paper.

Leclaire seems to find it difficult to accept the concept of 'force' as an active principle in the mind, the quantity of which is the decisive element in the outcome of psychic battles. He contends that the concept 'force' is artificially brought into psychological studies, that it has no autochthonous legitimation in our field of studies but is the consequence of Freud's model of the psyche; namely, the mental apparatus.

In my opinion this model is still the best. We have no other to make the relationship of the mental systems to each other clear to ourselves and the phenomena of dream-life and neurosis comprehensible. I do not think that the 'puissance', the 'force' as an explanatory concept is the result of the conceptualization of the psyche as an apparatus. (It is not clear to me whether Leclaire considers the model of the apparatus in itself a misconception.) I would like to emphasize that I consider my ideas of the concept of mental force and consequently of quantitative considerations in our studies to be indispensable.

It has been repeatedly presented that the concept of force is introduced into the psychological field from the realm of the physical sciences, as an analogical concept, as it were.

I am of the opinion that the borrowing of a concept from the other field happened just the other way round. Our original world picture is utter