Under the assumption that the advancement of psychoanalysis is achieved not primarily by importing cognitive or neuroscientific concepts into metapsychology, but by modifying existing theoretical constructs in light of new scientific discoveries, this paper proposes a revised model of the psychic apparatus. To this end, the constructs of instinct, Trieb (drive), psychic apparatus, and the distinction between repressed and non-repressed unconscious are reformulated by clarifying the relations among needs, wishes, and desires. Accordingly, a distinction is drawn between inborn natural instincts and desire driven constructed instincts, and these are proposed as constituents of two concurrent registers of psychic functioning within the overall apparatus. A clinical vignette illustrates the clinical implications of this proposal.