ABSTRACT
American interpretations of the genesis of psychoanalytic theory stress historical, clinical, or biographical factors. Actually, the Freudians soon realized that every new insight would affect clinical work as well as theory. At first, Sigmund Freud wondered why the childhood sexual experiences his patients were reporting had been repressed to begin with and then expressed as symptoms. Freud, however, incorporated two approaches, the physiological and the psychological, and related them to each other by means of his theory of sexuality. As Freud kept expanding his theory of drives, he constantly redefined the properties or functions of some components and the dynamics or relations among them. The ideas later would invite exploration of therapeutic techniques, narcissism, object relations, and the specific controversies surrounding each of them. Originally, Freud thought that the recollection of trauma alone would cure the patient. When this turned out to be just the first of many abreactions and new insights engendered only temporary relief, he was disappointed.
