We now return to the discussion of the ego's regulative principles, which we began with our description of thinking and rational action. At this point we should be able to say something about those regulating factors which are connected with the ego interests1 and the will. However, psychoanalysis, concerned as it is with the regulation by the instinctual drives and thinking, has lost sight of the regulation by the will. Moreover, it was more important to psychoanalysis to view instinctual drive-and will-processes in the context of individual development, which connects them, rather than to differentiate them from each other. We know much about the dependence of the will on the needs, but little about its independent, specific psychological significance, though we recognize that it is steered by the external world more than the instinctual drives are. It may be surmised (Federn has on occasion made this point) that the psychology of will-processes