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Psychoanalytic theory has a fundamental historical and contemporary role in psychological thought and is an important mainstay of clinical practice. Although relatively new to the psychological scene, Hebb's theory15 has become extraordinarily prominent, as is attested to by its many and varied applications.† Despite the psychoanalytic and Hebbian systems being rarely mastered together or drawn into relationship with each other, some of the basic problems and aims of each appear to have their resolution in the other; a theoretical hybird promises gains which do not appear within the separate reach of each theory.
Early in his career Freud13a wrote an essay, “Project for a Scientific Psychology,” in which he attempted to specify a neurological model for mental functioning (” … the thing really seemed to be a machine which in a moment would run of itself.”13b Perhaps as a neurologist, he could not relinquish the notion of behavior being determined by palpable brain tissue. The project never realized the aims set for it and Freud's interest was not sustained.