ABSTRACT

Introduction It should be expected, as a prelude to defining and describing any frontier, that its main body or consolidated area be defined as a structure, and as a process in development. However, thousands of published articles and books and an extensive psychoanalytic periodical literature confuse rather than clarify the recognition of definitive trends. Sheer limitation of space alone makes the task of summarization almost impossible even without in­ cluding details, many of which, however, will be found in other chapters of this book. A more important difficulty, which at the same time points up the necessity for a critical survey, is the tendency of many psychoanalysts to consider abandoned concepts as integral parts of their field instead of view­ ing them in historical perspective.