ABSTRACT
The quarter of a century of the second phase saw extensive developments in Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory, and his psychoanalytic psychology had its main emphasis on the instinctual drives and their vicissitudes, which had not been the case in the first phase. He described three: the dynamic, the economic, and the topographical or structural. The dynamic point of view considers mental processes as being the outcome of the interplay of forces, often in conflict with one another. The economic viewpoint underlines the importance of variations in the quantity of mental forces and of the relative strength of such forces. The topographical or structural standpoint "regards the mental apparatus as a compound instrument, and endeavours to determine at what points in it the various mental processes take place". In a series of lectures given in 1944, Rapaport discusses the tenets or axioms of Freudian psychoanalytic psychology.
