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Liebsch discusses the interrelationship of primary and secondary processes. For almost eight years metapsychological discussion has maintained a dichotomy in characterizing the id and ego: the id is unorganized, generates wishes, and causes us to dream, while the ego is realistic and intelligent, and has the capacity to form object relationships. Yet there is a certain basic assumption of psychoanalytic theory that holds that in some of its aspects the ego is clearly and unambiguously denied intelligence and the recognition of reality; this assumption also accords to the id an orientation of intelligent capabilities with respect to reality. The author feels that there is an evolution of cognitive structures in the id as well as in the ego. He argues that cognitive structures are ontogenetically developed methods of dealing with inner and outer reality and making it meaningful. He thus hopes to remove the theoretically crippling linkage of the motivational assumptions of psychoanalysis with the concept of the formal aspects of the psychical organization. For Freud, the deciding factor in differentiating primary from secondary process was in the inhibition of the natural discharge of tension under the pressure of bringing internal processes and external reality into harmony.
Through the influence of Brücke and Meynert, Freud attempted to develop a purely neurophysiological model for psychology, but to do so, he employed a