ABSTRACT

The threefold conception of the mind permitted introducing a great deal of order into phenomena which had been found with the help of the psycho-analytical concepts existing before it, but which no longer fitted comfortably in the existing theory. Perhaps its greatest usefulness lies in the aspect concerning those facts which dealt with what came to be called, in the threefold conception, the super-ego. Various criticisms have been levelled against the threefold conception and there is a definite tendency in psychoanalysis to do away with it, either in practice or in theory. In practice many people use it at times, and at other times manage to do without any clear theory at all. In theory the rival of the threefold conception is constituted by the various forms of the so-called object-relations theory. The notions of id, ego and super-ego, it is claimed can be replaced by the notions of object and object relations.