ABSTRACT
In a letter to Fliess (March 10, 1898) Freud said: “The theory of wishfulfillment has brought only the psychological solution and not the biological, or, rather met psychological one (I am going to ask you seriously, by the way, whether I may use the name of metapsychology for my psychology that leads behind consciousness).” Clearly Freud was looking for a term for his new work, which he knew was going beyond consciousness, thus taking it out of the scope of psychology proper. Freud, by that time and after writing the ‘Project for scientific psychology’ (1950b), knew that what is beyond consciousness is not just unconsciousness but the whole process that creates the psychical from the endosomatic; possibly why he used the term ‘biological’. He mentioned the term
‘metapsychology’ very few times and without clarity until he came to revising his main conceptions in 1915. He said (1915d): “I propose that when we have succeeded in describing a psychological process in its dynamic, topographic, and economic aspects we should speak of it as metapsychology” (181). This was the closest he came to defining metapsychology. It is not clear, in that sentence, if metapsychology means the transformation of the psychological process into those three attributes, or if those three ways of talking about the psychological process would mean that we are talking metapsychologically. In other words, it is not clear in this definition if Freud meant that metapsychology is a term needed to deal with the three aspects of psychical processes or a term imposed on us by virtue that psychical processes need to be considered beyond psychology. Then we come to the crust of the dilemma of metapsychology when he was about to conclude his theoretical endeavours. In ‘Analysis terminable and in terminable’ (1937c) he said: “Without metapsychological speculation and theorizing – I had almost said ‘phantasying’ – we shall not get another step forward. Unfortunately, here and elsewhere, what our Witch reveals is neither clear nor very detailed” (225). It is imperative to put this sentence in its context. Freud was trying to give a theoretical formulation of the effect of psychoanalytic therapy on the pressures of the ‘instinct’ on the ego, when he thought of calling on the Witch (metapsychology) to help make that formulation. On the one hand he considered metapsychology to be the way to formulate the theory, and then realized that it was not enough. Right after recognizing the limitations of metapsychology in that regard he continued to say: “We have only a single clue to start from – though it is a clue of the highest value – namely, the antithesis between the primary and the secondary processes; and that antithesis I shall at this point turn” (1937c, 225). Although, it is likely to think that I am so gripped and passionate about Freud’s words, I have to remind myself that I am trying to find out what Freud had in mind when he talked about metapsychologies. In this context Freud meant by metapsychology: the structural formulation of some informative theoretical material.1
