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Exegesis and (Webster says) hermeneutics continue. For almost three thousand years men have discussed whether the creation stories in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 are contradictory or not. For centuries scholars have debated whether or not the genealogies of Jesus in St. Matthew 1 and St. Luke 3 are irreconcilable. Should we throw the first stone at the later disciples of Sigmund Freud for arguing still about the mutual incompatibility of the topographic and of the structural theory of psychoanalysis and for preferring the latter and later one to the former?
The monograph describes and compares both theories, recommending that the topographic theory be abandoned in favor of the structural theory and that the latter be employed for the understanding of dreams, the psychoses, the concepts of regression and primary and secondary processes. Dreams are said to result from ego-id-superego conflicts. Psychosis is placed at the extreme of a continuum with normalcy at the opposite end and neurosis in the middle. Regression is usually only partial and temporary and can affect all three mental structures. Primary and secondary processes differ in amount of cathectic motility. Does all this sound familiar?
The absence of Rapaport's name from the bibliography (The Structure of Psychoanalytic Theory, 1960) makes one wonder whether this is another instance of cryptomnesia, a frequent occurence in scientific writings (Brandt, “Freud and Schiller,” 1959). Rapaport's summaries and discussions of Freud's earlier and later theories are considerably more precise and concise than those by Arlow and Brenner and lead to the same inescapable conclusions. However, Rapaport, as a brilliant thinker, does not return to concepts he has once eliminated. Whereas Arlow and Brenner discuss at length the pros and cons of the term ‘preconscious’ and finally suggest that it be abandoned, Rapaport simply omits the term after having abandoned the entire framework to which it belongs, that of the topographic the