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In his 1937 paper, “Constructions in Analysis,” Freud described the method used by psychoanalysis to reconstruct the history of the analysand's development. He likened this to the work of archaeology, but noted that psychoanalysis has more regular and dependable data in the “reactions dating from infancy and all that emerges in connection with these repetitions through the transference.”9
From this paper it is clear that the idea of construction advanced by Freud rests upon the psychoanalytic situation. Implicit in this prevailing concept of reconstruction is the assumption that constructions are made by means of the interaction between the free floating attention of an analyst and the productions of the patient. That is, in order to make constructions, one must be dealing with a real case.
Hartmann10 has pointed out the need to avoid losing sight of the real aim of psychoanalysis which is to develop propositions which “transcend individual observations.” It would be in the interest of psychoanalysis to develop the notion of constructions somewhat independent of the concrete case. It is very easy to become immersed in the individual biography and ignore the framework of scientific generality within which observations and reconstructions are made.
If the constructions of psychoanalytic theory are approached from a view of their logical independence of the specific case or cases utilized to demonstrate the validity of the constructions, and to stimulate their formulation originally, an additional source of data may become available together with a modification of method.