The problem of mental representation in self and object theory

The concept of mental representation has come to mean too many things. Some authors use representational terms to include both subjective experience and nonphenomenal, abstract, explanatory concepts. The reconciliation between the representational and structural frames of reference cannot be achieved by a conceptual stuffing of representations into the system ego as a container. The mediation of mental activities by substructures of the mind is a highly complicated problem with considerable clinical significance. It is useful to distinguish representational concepts which have circumscribed functional capacities from representational systems which parallel the ego in scope. It is not yet possible to claim that we have adequately reconciled our views of memory with representational terms. Just as the alluring prospect of inventing an infinite series of "instincts" misled biologists in the past, so must we now avoid an infinite series of representations to which we assign any problematic mental task for explanation. We lack information from object relations theory about what there is in the mind which is not a mental representation. The clinical advantage of representational language and models over the structural hypothesis of compromise formation remains unsettled. There is in principle no conceptual obstacle to the integration in one frame of reference of both representational and structural concepts. This requires clear understanding of the representational structure as the result of compromise formation, as well as an important influence on compromise formation. We could then better study our heritage of shared experience without confusing the precipitates of our experience with the structure of our minds.