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on the need for contact rather than the satisfaction of drive. As such, the gratifying aspects of the mother are experienced during the earliest stage of absolute dependence by the original unitary ego (the ‘central ego.’). On the other hand, it would appear that non-gratification refers to the unavoidable experiences of frustration, and that the splitting of the ego pertains invariably to the existential dilemma of human beings: “some measure of splitting of the ego is invariably present at the deepest mental level” (1940: 8). There is an explicit borrowing from Klein, to begin with at least, in postulating the basic position in the psyche as a schizoid position. Although, as Fairbairn (1944: 81) points out: “Freud’s theory of the mental apparatus was…developed upon a basis of the depressive position; and it is on a similar basis that Melanie Klein has developed her views. By contrast, it is the schizoid position that constitutes the basis of the theory of mental structures which I now advance”. Fairbairn thus describes “a situation of emotional frustration in which the child comes to feel (a) that he is not really loved for himself as a person by his mother, and (b) that his own love for his mother is not really valued and accepted by her” (1940: 17). The situation is seen as ‘highly traumatic’ resulting in the formation of a ‘bad object’ and, at the same time, the transference of intimate human relations to an ‘inner reality.’ The latter thus comes about under traumatic conditions, namely, the “intolerable external situation” (1944: 111), where frustration results in the internalization of objects for defensive purposes. The central defensive mechanism is splitting: the internalized bad object is split under adverse conditions into an ‘exciting’ and a ‘rejecting’ object – both of which are subject to repression by the ego. The exciting object consists of the promising and enticing aspects of the mother; the rejecting object represents the depriving and withholding aspects of the mother. The former is attached to the ‘libidinal ego’ as the repository of hope; the latter, to the ‘internal saboteur’ or anti-libidinal ego as the agent of hatred. The resulting situation is defined as “the basic endopsychic situation” – that is, a central ego employing various defence mechanisms in relation to (i) the libidinal ego and the exciting object and (ii) the anti-libidinal ego and the rejecting object (1946: 147). The central ego comprises pre-conscious and conscious, as well as unconscious, elements; whereas the subsidiary egos are ordinarily unconscious. The use of Freudian terms notwithstanding, the tripartite structure of the personality along these lines does not correspond significantly to the structural model of classical psychoanalysis. Unlike Freud, Fairbairn postulates the organization of actual relational events into separate self-object formations, or structures, based upon the repression of internalized objects: central ego/ideal object; libidinal ego/exciting object; and anti-libidinal ego/rejecting object. The inseparability of ego and object is presented on this model in terms of “inherently dynamic structures resulting from the splitting of an original and single dynamic ego-structure present at the beginning” (1946: 148). Furthermore, while the structural ego, in the classical Freudian sense, is seen as a derivative of the unstructured id in the second topography, Fairbairn regards “the libidinal ego (which corresponds to the ‘id’) as a split off portion of the original, dynamic ego” (1946: 148). The difference in fundamental theoretical principles (methodological similarities notwithstanding) renders the theory of endopsychic structure incompatible with Freud’s structural model.
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