Metapsychology as a Multimodel System

For us psychoanalysts, the long existence of psychoanalysis as a scientific discipline is so obvious as to make it hard for us to see that objectively this phenomenon should have brought about some fascination. Psychoanalysis is, after all, but one of the many schools of thought which crystallized within the sciences of psychology and psychiatry in the course of the last century. However, while most of the others, after blooming and attracting many followers, started to wilt gradually until all that has remained of them is a chapter in 'history of psychology' books, psychoanalysis has exhibited an amazing ability for survival. And despite the fact that every so many years new schools appeared claiming that they would 'completely do away with orthodox psychoanalysis', psychoanalysis rose up again, each time, recuperated, and continues its development.

A young physician, who had just embarked on his studies at an analytic institute once remarked, in dismay, in a seminar on dreams: 'Of all the medical subjects I have studied, this is the only one where one still studies a text published in 1900 and reads it as if it were an up-to-date book.'

The special durability of psychoanalysis depends undoubtedly on many factors, such as the depth of the clinical observations on which theory is based; the therapeutic technique which has proved its effectiveness over many years and the care in the selection and education of candidates for psychoanalysis. But really, none of these factors make up the case exclusively for psychoanalysis, and there are many other schools whose adherents are no less sharp in their clinical diagnoses, nor in their therapeutic ability, nor in their dedication to the education of their followers.

The unique feature of psychoanalysis lies, in my opinion, in its theoretical system; in its tool, created to organize the clinical observations, to understand their meaning and to determine the kind of therapeutic intervention.

My purpose in the present paper is