ABSTRACT
Freud's scientific goal was not simply to understand psychopathology, but to develop a general psychology that would describe the laws governing all of psychic functioning. This meant that he had to describe a structural model, the energy shifts by which it ran, and the functions it served. These three questions are essential to the study of any machine: How it is built? What makes it run? What function does it serve? In psychoanalysis this complete formulation—the structural, economic, and dynamic views—is defined as the metapsychological presentation (S.E. 14 181).
