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The central thesis of this work is in the mainstream of psychoanalytic theory: that the process of internalization, and especially
identification, is the basic developmental mode of human experience. Dr. Schafer defines internalization generically as those processes by which regulatory characteristics of the other are taken over by the self with the adaptive aim of enhancing the capacity of control by the self. Inherent in this view is the concept of the adaptive regulatory aims of narcissism, that is, that structure-building identifications enhance both the self and object representations.
The explicit issues dealt with in the text concern the metapsychology of psychoeconomics and the processes of psychic internalization and structuralization. In addition, the broad problem of the philosophy of science is implicitly dealt with as this affects research efforts in psychoanalysis; Dr. Schafer is throughout concerned not only with the problems of data collection, but also how the data can be treated. This work emphasizes the dynamic perspective with the direct conceptual referents being data at Waelder's first level of abstraction—that of the immediate subjective experience.
The construct of psychoeconomics has received intensive discussion in recent years. Dr. Schafer's thoughts on this matter will be controversial in some quarters, but they are cogent and logical, and to my mind persuasive. Of the five metapsychological perspectives a case can be made that in psychoanalytic studies the economic perspective is treated 'primus inter pares' and the question is why. The answer to this question lies in the referents of the term: psychoeconomics is the metapsychological perspective that is closest to actual experience. Upon introspection it is self-evident that the most immediate aspect of human experience is that of the 'strength' or 'weakness' dimension of what we are experiencing, be it thought, affect, or action. This fact is inherent in the very act of atte