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Psychoanalytic theories can be arranged along a continuum. At one end, enduring structural aspects of the psyche are primarily seen as derivative of the vicissitudes of drives, while at the other end, structure derives from the vicissitudes of relationships (Greenberg and Mitchell, 1983). Ultimately an integration of these two viewpoints appears to be necessary for a psychoanalysis that is consistent with evolutionary biology (Kriegman and Slavin, 1989, in press; Slavin, this issue; Slavin and Kriegman, in press). However, this article focuses on the challenges to the classical paradigm that modern evolutionary theory poses. We shall see that the main thrust of self psychology, a relational/structure model is more consistent with what we now know about the evolution of our species.
We shall restrict our focus to ego psychology, the foundations of which are presented in the work of Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, and Hartmann—which we shall refer to as classical or traditional psychoanalysis—and the profound challenge to this viewpoint presented by Kohut's self psychology. Some of the points that are supportive of self psychology could also apply to theories that are closer to the traditional viewpoint, for example, Mahler's relational focus within, but as an accommodation of, the drive/structure model. Therefore, it might be said that drive/structure theorizing can encompass the relational “urge towards union,” for example, in the drive-derived concepts of symbiosis and individuation (Mahler et al., 1975). However, the accommodations necessary fully to explain relational data leave the original spirit of the drive/structure