Freud viewed the primary process as developing first and operating according to the pleasure principle, the secondary process as developing later and operating according to the reality principle. However, the healthy infant not only expresses wishes but actively seeks to gratify them through the mother. His secondary process operates coevally with the primary process, and his ego functions cannot initially be differentiated from his instinctual discharges. The thesis of this paper is that the secondary processes are 'realistic' when they are used to relate to the external world objectively, while the primary processes are 'realistic' when they are used to relate affectively to objects of emotional interest. If this hypothesis is correct, the aim of psychoanalytic treatment is not primarily to make the unconscious conscious, nor to strengthen the ego, but rather to establish the connection between dissociated psychic functions so that the patient ceases to feel an inherent antagonism between his imaginative and adaptive capacities.