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Since the publication of Freud's seminal paper on The Ego and the Id (1923), structural theory has replaced topographic theory as the conceptual mode for understanding the psychic apparatus. This shift away from the topographic mode has resulted in an underestimation of the value of the unconscious as a system separate in function and different in organization from the structural organization. Further, there has been a tendency to equate the unconscious with the id. While certain parallel functions or modes of operation bear similarity, such as the quality of energy, i.e., unbound cathexis (Gill, 1963), and the mechanism of primary process, as hypotheses the difference between structure and system lead to divergent modes of clinical investigation and understanding of the data. The id as part of the structural organization refers to a complemental series of parts, a constituent of interrelated units, and this complex unit, this structure, is ordered in part by a phylogenetic inheritance (Freud, 1923) and a constitutional basis which unfolds in a sequential series of maturational processes. The unconscious is delineated as a system—a concept sometimes overlapping with the derivative meaning of structure — but as a system it is better defined by explanatory tenets or postulates (Ricouer, 1970) which can describe phenomeno-logical and dynamic modes within the entire structural organization.
The conceptualization of a topographic system as a mental locale with barriers between the system's conscious, preconscious, and unconscious provides a somewhat different understanding of the psychic apparatus with its progressive and retrogressive alterations and vicissitudes of perception than does the structural organization. The means by which an affective state can recall a past experience either through a mnemonic perception without a functional change