Freud’s theories of hysteria are of interest for both the history and the philosophy of psychoanalysis. A critical study of the development of these theories is apt to throw light on Freud’s way of thinking. Since the theories are predominantly clinical, a study of their development can be expected to be relevant also for psychoanalytic practice.

What we commonly refer to as psychoanalytic theory is in reality a more or less loosely integrated collection of theories. Theories of childhood development, each focusing on a different aspect of this development, the theory of the Oedipus complex, and the theory of narcissism are examples and so is the theory of psychoanalytic therapy. I will consider none of these. My focus will be exclusively on the psychoanalytic theory of unconscious motivation. This theory occupies a central position in relation to other psychoanalytic theories in that in their explanatory endeavors they all in one way or another adduce unconscious motives. It is convenient to subdivide the psychoanalytic theory of unconscious motivation into two theories, namely, a clinical or psychological and an extraclinical theory. The latter is in fact a set of alternative theories of which relevant parts of what Freud ([9]: 181) referred to as metapsychology is one. It can be, and has actually been, maintained-for instance, by Klein ([1 1]) and Schafer ([23])-that the clinical theory can perfectly well stand on its own and that, accordingly, an extraclinical theory has nothing to contribute except confusion. One of the main points I will make in this paper is that, far from leading to confusion, the clinical theory becomes more interesting and also more satisfactory as a theory when properly integrated with an acceptable extraclinical theory. In trying to define the acceptability of such a theory we will be led to examine the nature of unconscious mental events generally, and specifically of unconscious motives. But before we get that far I must