Meetings of the New York Psychoanalytic Society

DISCUSSION: Dr. David Rubinfine pointed out that even in his work on aphasia, Freud substituted localization of function by the concept of a word schema which was continuously evolving as a result of function building up structure. The

bases of all structure are preformed thresholds and the delay of discharge. Dr. Rubinfine disagreed with Dr. Beres' interpretation of Rapaport's secondary model of affect; the term 'structuralized delay' refers to the delay of discharge by intrapsychic structures, while 'segregated affect changes' refers to signals evoked in the ego. He also disagreed with the criticisms of the formulations of Gill and Glover that structures are not defined by their fixity but their slow rate of change.

Dr. Charles Brenner felt that Dr. Beres had demonstrated the clinical usefulness of the functional approach. It is more important to assess each function in regard to the degree or manner of its disturbance than to speak of the maldevelopment of the ego. He supported the criticism of Rapaport who conceived of structures as learned responses as opposed to innate ones. Structures are not environmentally conditioned psychic reaction patterns but are groupings and divisions of functions.

Dr. Heinz Hartmann felt that Dr. Beres' paper was clarifying, especially if structure is defined in terms of function. However, one must differentiate between abstractions about content and those about function in connection with content. The problem is that there are several meanings of 'structure': Freud, Hartmann, Rapaport, and Gill use the concept differently; Dr. Hartmann still defines it in terms of relative stability and automatization, not as the tripartite theory. These different concepts of 'structure' may all have relevance to psychoanalytic concepts of structure.

Dr. Merton Gill disagreed with Dr. Beres that the structural theory is valid and the concept of structure is not. The concepts of relative autonomy of the ego demand the postulate of 'micros