Psychic structure and psychic change – changing models of the mind (1997)

Almost from the beginning, when formulating a theory of mind, Freud saw the mind as having a structure. I think it is not often appreciated or emphasised how revolutionary that way of looking at the mind was. Until Freud, the mind was a rather vague concept. Seeing it as a structure implied that the psychic world, like the physical world, can be studied in terms of elements, or parts, combining into a structure.This can become a subject of detailed study of the different parts and their interactions.