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FREUD'S MAJOR CONTRIBUTION TO THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COGNITION lies in his formulation of a dual theory, one which conceptualizes the cognitive processes as being composed of two sets of processes, each operating according to its own organizational rules. In his biography of Freud, Jones (1953) states, "Freud's revolutionary contribution to psychology was not so much his demonstrating the existence of an unconscious, and perhaps not even his exploration of its content, as his proposition that there are two fundamentally different kinds of mental processes, which he termed primary and secondary" (p. 397).
The studies of Freud as well as those of psychoanalytically oriented clinical and experimental researchers since Freud have proved repeatedly that the distinction between the primary and secondary processes involves practically all areas of cognitive functioning—thinking, perception, communication, and others.
This study represents an attempt to show that:
1Every cognitive function operates according to two different organizational modes: one mode submitted to the organizational rules of the primary process, and the other to those of the secondary process.
2The normal development of the cognitive apparatus as a whole as well as that of any of its separate functions requires that