ABSTRACT
Papers that are labelled Freud's metapsychological papers are his attempt at a more formal theory. His papers “The unconscious”, “Repression”, and “Instincts and their vicissitudes” are all efforts at systematizing his psychoanalytic theory. This chapter looks at Freud’s works in terms of issues rather than in chronological order. It includes a fuller statement of the dual instinct theory, new views on the self and object relations (and object love), fixation points in terms of Freud’s views of psychopathology, repression (or defence), the role of the unconscious, and logical difficulties in the new statement of the topographic model. The chapter focuses on the prominence Freud presents in his concern with the pathways to and regressions from the attainment of object love. It also looks at Freud’s definition of meta-psychology and his views on epistemological issues of theory construction.
