In this paper I suggest that much of recent experiment in analytic theory, even widely diverse approaches, has as a common denominator the problem of the conceptual vacuum created by the shift away from a central creative position of the idea of psychic mechanisms. I try to illustrate, by comparing theories of Bion and George Klein, that this movement seems to point in the direction of considering now what is uniquely psychoanalytic about our theories.

I contend that what is unique about psychoanalytic