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recall, dream of or do — is formed by representations ( Vorstellungen ). Their determining rules are not hidden in the depths of the spirit, but rather, simply, in the formation of the representations themselves. The equivalent occurs in a field of forces that organizes the distribution of particles — invisible as it is, this field does not hide out in a remote location, but is merely the form occupied by such particles. And, as the psychoanalytic method contains the seeds of relative unconsciouses (Hermann’s neologism) — the unconsciouses of most diverse relations — it seems preferable to say that it uncovers fields of the relations under study. In the case of Multiple Fields Theory, this thinking is applied to the generalization of the Freudian concept of the unconscious. The reasoning behind this generalization (which proposes a new term field ) is threefold. In the first place, it is of a critical nature. Although the interpretative method was Freud’s fundamental invention, a doctrinaire layer has covered it ever since the founder’s own time — as if psychoanalysts, notwithstanding the communication of unconsciouses generated and unveiled by psychoanalytic method, decided at each moment that either a specific unconscious were sufficient or total. Of all doctrines, Freud’s was undoubtedly the most encompassing, for in it was enshrined, in an almost pure state, the interpretive method. Recovering the creative power of the method, rescuing it from the doctrinaire prison, was the first aspiration of the Multiple Fields Theory as a system of thought. The second reason is of a practical nature. As analysts make their living in their consulting rooms (their practice), psychoanalytic therapy occupied all of their attention. Furthermore, with the multiplication of the schools, different technical recipes of how to analyze arose. In other words, the method became lost in the techniques and doctrines. Nonetheless, as the results obtained by these doctrines — with their diverse models of the psyche and different formulas of clinical procedure — seem fundamentally similar, it became very evident that the same agent, the method, undergirded them all. The third reason follows from this last one, and it has to do with the fact that Psychoanalysis was converted over time into a sort of a science of analytical therapy. This is not, however, its professional purpose which is to create a general science of the psyche, whether regarding phenomena said to be pathological or (as Freud never ceased to demonstrate) those considered normal. The Multiple Fields Theory was born of this critique and undertook to recover the psychoanalytical method, a method that had become concealed among theoretical doctrines and embedded in the techniques of clinical practice. In its aspiration to contribute to the development of a possible general science of the psyche , it is therefore not merely another school, but an interpretation of Psychoanalysis. The word method has a long history. Etymologically, it combines the meanings of way (odós) and an objective that reaches beyond (metá)—metá/hodós. Before and after positivism — in positivism it indicates system, clarity, repetition, proof — method has primarily meant movement and mode. When Freud invented Psychoanalysis, questions about the nature of its method did not arise. Method, in the accepted epistemological sense, was unproblematic, because it was embodied in any of the Freudian analyses and above all in his writing. The notion of method, in any discipline, designates the form of the process of knowledge
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