It has often been pointed out that numerous psychoanalytic concepts are defined very imprecisely. This imprecision has prevented psychoanalysis from acquiring the more solid scientific status which would permit a true comparison with other sciences, and in particular with those disciplines closest to it. The present discussion of the concept of the preconscious is an attempt to respond to this need for clarity of concept and terminology. It originated from the observation that contemporary references to the preconscious are extremely fleeting and wholly removed from a general conceptual framework. All too often, writers simply stress that preconscious material is important and that the interpretative activity should take it into account: such statements sound dismissive and indeed superfluous compared to the far greater attention devoted to the