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The metapsychology of classical psychoanalysis has triggered critical comments from many sides. This article challenges the project of Wilma Bucci, a cognitive psychologist, who has made a systematic attempt to reformulate Freud's theory in harmony with cognitive science and contemporary empirical research. Discussion focuses on the concept of primary process and the cognitive alternative—subsymbolic process—using as standards of comparison the dream and the creative work of the artist.
The main consideration of this article is that, whereas Freud built his theory of the dream and of creativity on the idea of wishful hallucination, cognitive psychology takes as a starting point the world of perception. This means, in short, that the process of dreaming and of creation, according to cognitive thinking, moves in a forward progression, using the information of the senses as building blocks for symbolizations. In contrast, classical Freudian theory takes as its point of departure a gap between perception and representation. The dream and the act of creation are processes that attempt to construct the world of lost happiness or satisfaction out of this gap.
Bucci's cognitive psychology, like several contemporary psychoanalytic theories based on infant research and studies of psychic development, diverges from Freudian thinking in ways not always recognized as serious and deep by their authors. Bucci has made a systematic attempt to overcome what seem to be, from the perspective of cognitive psychology, inconsistencies and failures of Freudian metapsychology. To Bucci, these are viewed as necessary modifications in accordance with advanced knowledge gained