IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis

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development, in which object relations and the self were seen as outgrowths of instinctual vicissitudes (See the entries OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY; SELF; EGO PSYCHOLOGY). Her Separation-Individuation theory (Mahler, Pine and Bergman 1975) provides both direct observational and psychoanalytic data that permit one to trace the stages of development Jacobson postulated. Although there was a traditional attention to the drives in her Separational-Individuation theory, the object relations focus was evident in the issues Mahler singled out as of particular developmental significance at each subphase, i.e., social smile, rather than sucking, initiating symbiosis (Blum 2004b). Overall, Mahler provided the clinical evidence that permitted the establishment of timetables for the developmental stages of internalized object relations proposed by Jacobson. Kernberg’s (1976, 1982) work on the pathology of internalized object relations of borderline conditions evolved in the context of that theoretical frame. IV. Ad. Fred Pine Further developing Hartmann’s (1939/58), Anna Freud’s (1936) and Margaret Mahler’s (Mahler, Pine and Bergman 1975) conceptualizations, Pine (1971, 1974, 1983) continued building conceptual bridges between drives and processes of learning, thinking, memory, and perception, mainly along two lines: 1. Separation-individuation and libidinal object constancy; and 2. A distorting (and inhibiting) effect of drives and object relationships upon cognitive functioning. He noted how the development of the memory image of the absent love object is designed to resolve the child’s polar wishes for autonomy on the one hand and closeness to mother on the other (Pine, 1971, 1974), whereby by carrying her image within him, the child can have his mother with him, with no sacrifice of his autonomy. In “The Development of Ego Apparatus and Drive”, Pine (1983) depicts the integral functional relationships between the thought processes, affects and drives. He writes: “Our drives—our needs and urges—must take the expressive shape made possible by the stimulus- receiving, and recording, and re-eliciting, and representational qualities of our cognitive apparatus…” (ibid, p.243). IV. Ae. Hans Loewald Revision: Interaction as a Source of the Drives As was the case with Jacobson, Loewald regarded the psychic structure of the drives and the id as originating in the interaction of the infant with its human environment (mother) ( Loewald, 1978). identifying interaction as the critical aspect in the internalization of the subjective representation of the self and other. He went further by veering away from the reified sense of psychic agency, defense and inter/intra-systemic conflicts. Instead, he focused on the nature of interaction with the (human) environment noting the role it “plays in the formation, development and continued integrity of the psychic apparatus” (1960, p. 221).

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