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Interaction becomes for Loewald not only the source of the drives (1960, 1971a, 1978), but a central aspect of unconscious processes. Focusing on the nature of interaction, he noted the role it “plays in the formation, development and continued integrity of the psychic apparatus” (1960, p. 16). Interaction becomes for Loewald not only the source of the drives (1960, 1971a, 1978), but a central aspect of unconscious processes . This stress on interaction as a basic building block of the mind guided Loewald’s theory of the unconscious, drawing upon and heavily modifying the adaptive and genetic aspects of Freud’s metapsychology while leaving the structural/topographical models adrift. He believed that “…in an analysis, …, we have opportunities to observe and investigate primitive as well as more advanced interaction processes, that is, interactions between patient and analyst which lead to or from steps in ego integrations and disintegration” (1960, p.17). Loewald believed that Freud postulated two different understandings of the drives. The first was before 1920 with drives as discharge-seeking. The second came with his introduction of the concept of Eros in 1920 in “Beyond the Pleasure Principle”, where Freud radically altered his definition of the drive as no longer discharge-seeking but rather as connection- seeking “not using objects for gratification but for building more complex mental experiences and for re-establishing the lost original unity between self and others” (Mitchell and Black, 1995, p.190). However, Loewald’s revision of Freud’s drive theory required a radical reformulation of Freud’s traditional psychoanalytic concepts. While on the whole, for Freud the id is a biologically rooted force clashing with social reality, for Loewald the id is an interactional product of adaptation, and the mind is not interactive secondarily but is interactive by its very nature. Loewald theorized that in the beginning there is no distinction between self and other, ego and external reality, or instincts and objects; rather there is an original unitary whole composed of both baby and caregivers. He proposed that “Instincts understood as psychic and motivational forces become organized as such through interactions within a psychic field, consisting originally of the mother-child (psychic) unit.” (Loewald, 1971, p118). It is because of statements like these, that French speaking analysts in Canada find Loewald, self-identified as an Ego psychologist, exemplary of ‘Third Model’ thinking described below. In addition, Loewald’s (1960) statement, “…instinctual drives are as primarily related to ‘objects’, to the ‘external world,’ as the ego is. In other words, instinctual drives organize environment and are organized by it no less than is true for the ego and its reality… It is the mutuality of organization, in the sense of organizing each other, which constitutes the inextricable interrelatedness of ‘inner and outer world’…” (ibid, p. 23.), has resonance with Contemporary French analytic thought on both sides of the Atlantic (See separate entry OBJECT RELATIONS THEORIES, INTERSUBJECTIVITY, EGO PSYCHOLOGY).
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