The Evolutionary Significance of the Primary Process—The Freudian Concept and Its Revision

Abstract

Freud’s Lamarckian beliefs contributed to his theory of instincts, as well as his concepts regarding the unconscious primary process. Freud’s theory of the primary and secondary process is fundamentally biological, as he placed it within an evolutionary context and hypothesized that the two systems were distinguished by free and bound psychic energy. Freud’s distinction between the primary and secondary process is one of the few psychoanalytic theories that has been confirmed by science. We believe that Freud was correct in maintaining that the primary process is of earlier evolutionary origin than the secondary process. But Freud failed to recognize the distinction between primary-process thinking that occurs in dreams and that which occurs in the waking state. In the waking state, the primary process is not wish fulfilling, as Freud believed, but functions as an inference making tool utilizing metaphor and metonymy. As such, rapid, unconscious primary process thinking is at the heart of our survival.

Notes

¹ For an alternative view revising Freud’s primary process, see Holt (2009).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Arnold H. Modell

Dr. Modell is Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School; and Training and Supervising Analyst, Boston Psychoanalytic Institute.