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VIII. CONCLUSION-SUMMARY
Drive is one of the most complex and controversial concepts of psychoanalytic theory. There may be many reasons for this. Historically first among them may be Freud´s deep conviction that drives – sexual and aggressive - are the fundamental ‘building blocks’ of the human psyche and are present from birth, thus creating inherently incestual conflicts within the mother-infant earliest matrix. Second, the use of the concept as a bridge between the physical and the psychical realms. Third, drive has both metapsychological (at times almost mythological - described by Freud as the ‘myth of psychoanalysis’) and clinical (calling for scientific research) dimensions, contributing to the theoretical concept and the phenomena it refers to still being viewed as somewhat enigmatic. Yet, the very same points opened the vista of far-reaching developments within psychoanalytic thought, with major clinical implications: Designating the drive as a frontier concept subverted the cartesian mind-body dualism; It was on the grounds of the early stage of his drive theory that Freud articulated the radical notions of complemental series and a continuity between illness and health. Additionally, Freud’s ongoing evolution, expansion and reworking of his drive theory, may be (and fruitfully has been) approached as a ‘work in progress’, encouraging (opening rather than closing) further inquiry. In this vein, Freud’s ‘inter-disciplinary theorizing’ encouraged rather than discouraged interdisciplinary dialogue and cross-fertilization in regard to variously conceptualized drives and affects. As per the European perspective , controversies surrounding drive concept and drive theory have been an important ‘driving’ force of post-Freudian conceptual developments, as drive has been part of many central debates and controversies. First, there was the question of motivation : what sets the human subject going, and what is he/she searching for: Is the starting point bodily cravings and attempts to handle them, or is the search for certain feelings in relation to other persons the most important motivating force? This is the question of basic human strife : drive release or object search. Even if there is no contradiction between the two (as drive always seeks for an object), the question remains: is the object the most contingent, replaceable part of the ‘drive chain’ or is the object actually constructing the drive, its centrality as motivation, and the experience of it? It was precisely on the grounds of such controversies that British Object Relations Theories and perspectives were born. With the early roots in Freud’s paper on Narcissism, various strands of Object Relations theories have contributed immensely to both psychoanalytic theory and clinical practice. Their impact reaches across the board of psychoanalytic orientations and across all continents. Yet, the contemporary approaches coming out of Europe raise the possibility that the ‘controversial discussions’ can be transformed into fruitful ‘discussion of controversies’: French psychoanalysis, as well as many contemporary Post-Freudian, strands of Object Relations, Field and Relational approaches, in addition to a rich array of synthetic, integrative and hybrid conceptualizations coming from Europe and the Americas, demonstrate that the
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