Een plus een is drie
In recent years psychoanalytic theory and practice suffered from a tendency to neglect some basic Freudian concepts. The influence of European phenomenologic psychopathology and American interpersonal psychiatry has been leading to new psychotherapeutic methods and theories in which especially non-verbal techniques of so-called 'communication' became fashionable. At the same time new ideas about the adaptional qualities of the ego and a definite trend of behavioristic nature within psychoanalytic circles complicated the situation. In the midst of this confusion, the notion of the Unconscious got lost, and with it the notion of the direct relation between language and the Unconscious. The obscure notion of an 'ego', not differentiated from the grammatical 'I', prevailed over that of a subject, or a self, and the conviction was born that an immediate, a non-mediated, relation between individuals and between man and his world was something evident, possible and necessary. This article contains some critical considerations concerning these questions, on the assumption that the scientific revolution, inaugurated by the birth of psychonanalysis and its central concepts should not be ignored, especially not by psychoanalysts. In this respect the oedipus- and the castration-complex need to be re-discovered, not only as a phase in the libido-development, but even more as organizing structures; the conditions required for the stability of the knowledge about personal identity should be reexamined; and the current ego-psychology, made in USA, should be thrown into the deep blue sea.