Strictly speaking, it is impossible to fit a discussion of the conclusions of Freudian thought, and of the theoretical and clinical positions reached at the end of his long life, into so little space(1). All the more so because contemporary perspectives on Freud's work do not allow us to view his thought as solely progressive in nature, as developing consistently through the accumulation of one discovery after another: first the significance of dreams, of the unconscious, and of infantile sexuality, and then the second topic, the death instinct, the splitting of the ego, and so on. Whoever studies Freud realizes that the theoretical positions reached towards the end of his life are often developments and conceptualizations of approaches already present from an early date, and sometimes from the very beginning: except that they had not been treated systematically as theories and given that true status as concepts, which could transform them into tools for everybody to use.