A psychoanalyst, through training and experience, directs the en tire focus of his attention to registering and internalizing the in put of a patient's communications, listening intently for their implied meanings. It is only by umaveling the mysteries of an un conscious realm of mental activity that it becomes possible to fully comprehend the way in which mental productions are finally ob servable. The psychoanalyst's total personality is the listening in strument, and the messages emanating from this hidden sector most clearly heard, deciphered, and understood are those most resonant with the contents of the psychoanalyst's unconscious. It is probable that a variety of psychoanalysts adopting a listening posture with a given patient would hear and understand a mul tiplicity of different meanings. Over the years, sensitive, well trained psychoanalytic investigators have formulated concepts con cerning mental functioning from disparate and often opposing points of view. These contradictory ideas are offered from a ba sic theoretical foundation placing unconscious mental events as the most important force shaping human experience. Divergent opin ions may at times appear irreconcilable and then serve as the grounds for developing a separate psychoanalytic school of thought. It is not surprising that an exploration of unseen powerful and regressive forces, by a group of scientists with unique in dividual experiences, would yield insights sensitively attuned to a wide variety of important factors determining human develop ment and behavior."

The oedipal situation involves much more than an instinctual at titude toward a prohibited object giving expression to unconscious wishes. It introduces a whole new way of perceiving the internal and external world and an entirely different orientation to the myriad of life's experiences. A great deal of structural develop ment, requiring the negotiation of a sequence of early developmen tal tasks, has to have taken place before it is possible to encompass the complex demands of an oedipal attitude. When these early steps are not negotiated, although genital instinctual impulses may be manifested, the structural alignments necessary to enter into an oedipal position cannot be effected and the intrapsychic con flicts it engenders are not encountered. The thrust of early develop ment has made it essential for a narcissistic perspective to be adopted toward all stimuli and all relationships in order to enable All attachments must of necessity be continuing self-expansion. based upon the narcissistic supplies they contain, which ultimately lead to increasing levels of independence, self-differentiation, and individuation. It is precisely when the component instincts are con solidated into a genital drive that a narcissistic orientation can no longer incorporate the representation of experiences needed for the full realization of self-potentials. Were stimuli to only possess sig nificance in regard to their narcissistically enhancing attributes, the resulting dependence upon the external world would run counter to the thrust for independence and autonomy."