[Development of the autonomy concept in psychoanalytic literature]

The development of an implicit concept of autonomy in Freud's work and the different explicit concepts of autonomy in neo-analysis and ego-psychology is delineated. The contradictory views of a strict psychic determinism and the utopia of freedom stand side by side in early psychoanalysis. They represent its scientific and romantic root. Neo-analysis puts a stress on the romantic tradition and elaborates a philosophical concept of autonomy, while modern ego-psychology follows rather the scientific tradition. All concepts of autonomy are based on a model of psychic health that is related to the idea of a harmonious personality, an ideal which has precursors in German classicism, the renaissance, and the antique.