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When I was nominated to discuss the changes in the use of dreams in psychoanalytical practice, I felt it an honour and at the same time interpreted it as a requirement to bring to this dialogue a synthesis, however partial, of the views of some Latin-American psychoanalytical authors. To accomplish this, I discussed the papers of Harold Blum (this issue) and Masud Khan (this issue) at the Colombian Psychoanalytical Society, as well as a series of notes about dreams which covered technical and practical aspects. These discussions (Laverde, 1975) helped me to pinpoint some matters, suggested others and form the basis of this present outline.
Before referring to the above papers separately, I shall contemplate them as a whole. Each presents a mode of thought, certainly coherent and exemplary, within their different orientation—outstanding examples of a commonly occurring phenomenon within the theoretical developments of psychoanalysis, whose diverse orientations show an undoubted capacity for logical and formal development of theories which embrace almost the totality of psychoanalytical problems.
When we study the orientation of ego psychology (Hartmann 1964); (A. Freud 1970) or that of the Kleinian positions (Klein, 1948)(and Klein in Riviere, 1952) or that of Winnicott's (1958) object relations, etc., we may trace and understand the way each finds its origin in Freud's works and notice how each follows a development which has its own powerful logic. Moreover, from a certain perspective and at a certain distance, we can appreciate that some of the conceptual divergences that separate them are not really divergences at all, but are sometimes methodological mistakes, and at other times overvalued affective tendencies (Plata, 1964), (1965b); (Plata & Meluk, 1965a), (1974).
If this is the case, the question arises as to what is happening in the psychoanalytical theory, and as to whether the theoretical building of metapsychology is taking an unjustified primacy over cli