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stages’ or ‘libidinal phases’ parallel to psychosexual stages of development; and (7) Libido might be distributed in patterns that are specific to various personality or character organizations (‘libidinal types’).
III. B. DRIVE IN INTERNATIONALLY INFLUENTIAL BRITISH OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY - DEVELOPMENTS COMING OUT OF EUROPE
III. Ba. Introduction: Roots of Object Relations Theory of Freud The first drive theory remained mainly unquestioned during Freud´s lifetime. Until the 30’s, psychoanalysis was basically drive psychology. The picture has changed gradually to a point where it focuses mostly on the (dialectic) role of the object in constituting the subject (and vice versa). Forerunners of this move can (in retrospect) be traced even to Freud´s early writings where the role of the object in the ‘drive-chain’ theory is presented – even though it is usually conceptualized as the most ‘contingent’ factor. In “On Narcissism” (Freud, 1914), e.g., libido is described as moving from an undifferentiated state of autoerotism to cathect the ego in the first stage of primary narcissism, after which it reaches towards the object – like the “pseudopodia” of the amoeba – only to be ‘driven away’ because of frustration and ‘taken back’ in a withdrawal-act that ends in cathecting the inner representations of the objects (secondary narcissism). Sometimes, in psychotic states, the libido is even withdrawing from the inner-object representations. It is true, though, that the 1914 discussion focused on the libido and its movements much more than on the object – but the object´s essential role in the drive’s root was already stated – waiting to be elaborated in later ‘object relations’ developments. The second text is “Mourning and Melancholia” (Freud, 1917) in which melancholia is explained as the outcome of aggressive attacks on an internalized object which the ego is identified with – after suffering the loss of this object . Here again the role of the (missing) object is made clear even though it is still formulated in terms of the “drive model”. The role of the object and its importance in relation to the drive became central only after Melanie Klein’s model became established in the European mainstream. Klein, John Bowlby, W. R. D. Fairbairn (whose ideas may correspond with Sullivan´s in spite of the differences between them) and other authors instigated traditions in which the object has gained importance – sometimes at the expense of the drive.
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