ABSTRACT
Inevitably, as Hartmann well knew, each advance brings one into new problem areas at the same time as it decreases the stability of existing modes of thought. To recognize the liberating aspects of Hartmann's contribution, one need only turn back to the fine clinical studies and contributions of Edith Jacobson, Annie Reich and the early Kohut on narcissism and self-esteem, and Ernst Kris on creativity and thinking; for it will seem to the contemporary reader that these distinguished thinkers were spending an inordinate amount of time on psycho economic and structural formulations almost as though that aspect of formulating their clinical findings was their paramount obligation. Once the nature and function of facts have been problematized, Hartmann's reliance on the distinction between them and values has been radically destabilized. Now, every assembling of facts into a body of evidence is regarded as open to a critique of its assumptions regarding reference to a presupposed real world and discovered truth.
