ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the progression of Sigmund Freud's work compelled him to recognize the existence of modes of thought even more extraordinary than he could have expected when he proposed his first hypothesis on the unconscious. The validity of the equation psychical–conscious was contested by the idea of the unconscious. As long as Freud had the feeling that he could call upon the ego to lead him towards an awareness of the unconscious through the return of the repressed, he could consider that he was in a position to solve the difficulties inherent in psychoanalytic treatment. Positive or even ambivalent transference was based on the idea that with the help of the analyst a better compromise could be found between the demands made by the id and the ego which must also take into consideration both the superego and the reality principle.
