7. The Development of the “Wish”

I indicated earlier that Chapter VII of The Interpretation of Dreams contains certain genetic formulations that are relevant to a conceptualization of the structure id—thirty-three years before Freud worked out his structural theory. What I have in mind specifically are Freud's genetic formulations about the concept “wish.” Freud arrived at these within the framework of what he called “our schematic picture of the psychical apparatus” (1900, p. 565).1

The very first sentence can be understood in both evolutional and ontogenetic terms: “There can be no doubt that that apparatus [too—auch] has only reached its present perfection after a long period of development” (p. 565).

Both genetic aspects were expressed in the next sentence: “… its first structure followed the plan of a reflex apparatus, so that any sensory excitation impinging on it could be promptly discharged along a motor path. But the exigencies of life interfere with this simple function, and it is to them, too, that the apparatus owes the impetus to further development.”

Phylogenetically speaking, this formulation expresses in an extremely condensed fashion the development from the primitive forms of life whose functions are dictated on the