ABSTRACT
Heinz Hartmann's 'inner world' is a process of reflective judgment forestalling hasty action in outer reality, a view which does not take us anywhere near the tremendous dynamic problems of personality that psychoanalytic psychotherapy has to grapple with. Hartmann developed the already existing potentialities of the classical theory where it was visibly incomplete, in ego-analysis. The behavioural sciences have much to learn from Hartmann's detailed analysis of ego-processes. L. Rangell writes of Hartmann as going beyond the study of conflict and defence and says: Hartmann looks from the wider view of general psychological theory. The impact of Hartmann's work has caused much radical thinking among American analysts. A useful measure of this can be gained from a perusal of four papers in the International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 1965-6. The scientific study of the 'foundations' is necessary but ancillary to the study of 'personal reality', which is the special province of psychodynamic research.
