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Rapaport and Gill consider metapsychology the study of the assumptions upon which psychoanalytic theory is based. In stating what they consider these assumptions, the authors are guided by the basic points of view: dynamic, economic, structural, genetic, and adaptive. The genetic was taken for granted by Freud but never explicitly formulated. The work of Hartmann and Erikson has made clear that psychoanalytic theory has implied assumptions connected with adaptation. The authors stress that all points of view apply to all psychoanalytic propositions; they list a number of assumptions that pertain to each. Under the dynamic point of view, the authors list the following: 1, there are psychological forces; 2, psychological forces are defined by their direction and magnitude; 3, the effect of simultaneously acting psychological forces may be the simple result of the work of each of these forces; 4, the effect of simultaneously acting psychological forces may not be the simple result of the work of each of these forces. Each of these assumptions is discussed and 'the necessity, sufficiency, and fruitfulness of the assumptions' indicated by their application to the theory of affects. The authors state that it is not possible to assess whether all of the assumptions they have formulated are necessary, or whether the set of assumptions, when coupled with observational data, is sufficient. On the other hand, the points of view have been verified by experience, and should be accepted for the time being as the framework of psychoanalytic metapsychology.