What we commonly refer to as psychoanalytic theory is in reality a more or less loosely integrated collection of theories. Theories of childhood development, each focusing on a different aspect of this development, the theory of the Oedipus complex, and the theory of narcissism are examples, and so is the theory of psychoanalytic therapy. I shall consider none of these. My focus will be exclusively on the psychoanalytic theory of unconscious motivation. This theory occupies a central position in relation to other psychoanalytic theories in that in their explanatory endeavors they all in one way or another adduce unconscious motives.

It is convenient to divide the psychoanalytic theory of unconscious motivation in two, namely, into a clinical or psychological and an extraclinical theory. The latter is in fact a set of