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The nomination of any work as a classic naturally evokes thoughts about the criteria for that designation. Indeed, such a nomination may be rather gratuitous if, as various definitions suggest, a classic is a work of universally acknowledged excellence. However, an additional qualification usually indicates that it should set forth or at least effectively embody authoritative principles and methods in accordance with a coherent system. The status of a classic is rarely affirmed universally in a literal sense but only by those who have achieved a substantial conviction as the general validity of the system concerned.
Robert Waelder's (1937) paper is assuredly a classic in psychoanalysis by virtue of the sum of its demonstrable qualities: the authoritative and meticulous review of basic assumptions, the extraordinary clarity of argument, the rigorous critique of the kind of evidence available from the analytic situation and from other observational methods and properly applicable in the validation of new hypotheses, the valuable generalizability of its approach from the particular issue being addressed, and the continuing guidance offered in relation to a broad range of questions that still occupy our attention.
Regrettably, in recent years the description of a contribution or an approach as classical has tended to carry the connotation for some that while its historical role may be recognized, it is no longer fully applicable to modern theoretical issues or technical tasks that confront psychoanalysis. The primary purpose of this note, after a recent revisit to Waelder's illuminating examination