The development of knowledge in psychoanalysis does not proceed in the linear fashion that it does in most sciences. The progression of theory does not overturn previous theory with more accurate truths. What comes later is not in any way truer than what had preceded it in the sense that it has discovered some new fact that replaces a previous fact, now felt to be erroneous.

Thus, relational or intersubjective theory is not truer than self psychological theory, which itself is not truer than ego psychology, etc. The understanding of this allows us to view the contemporary Freudian authors