Incentives for a Reconsideration of the Debate on Metapsychology1

With a view to establishing an area of metapsychological common ground, the author examines the attempts made by G. S. Klein, Gill and Brenner to interpret Freud's conception of metapsychology. Quoting liberally from the correspondence with Fliess and from works composed at all stages of Freud's career, the author shows that the versions put forward by Klein and Gill do not stand up to scrutiny; the economic aspect on which Freud himself insisted and which Brenner upholds is also found wanting. It is argued that, if the Freudian ‘co-ordinates’ of metapsychology are to have an epistemological function, they must have a solid foundation in the representational world to which the psychoanalytic process affords access. Whereas this is the case with the topographical, dynamic and structural viewpoints, it is not true of the economic aspect. Energies are stated to exist in the representational world only in the form of affects, so that the economic aspect should, in the author's opinion, be abandoned in favour of an affective one. In the context of the endeavour to obtain pleasure and avoid unpleasure adduced by Freud, this viewpoint would concentrate on the relations between affects and the other key elements of the representational world to which the other metapsychological parameters relate.