The authors contend that the division of psychoanalytic theory into a drive-structure model and a relational-structure model reflects a larger tendency to divide the totality of human experience into a dichotomy of phenomena reflecting external experience and internal experience. They find similarities between Freud's preconscious and Winnicott's potential space. Both concepts bridge the division between internal and external, which are differing, non-overlapping sets. The preconscious and potential space function as processes which translate either set of experiences—internal or external—to the other. The authors advocate greater analytic focus on this process of intermediation.