You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY HAS GRADUALLY become such an expanding and so broadly inclusive a term that it is in need of redefinition. The term "object" was first used by Freud (1905) when he referred to the agent either upon which (whom) the instinctual drives were discharged and/or the agent which (who) facilitated the discharge. He first posited a stage of libidinal development known as autoerotism which was objectless. The autoerotism of the libidinal zones were later to be organized first under the authority of the narcissistic organization in which the ego was taken as the id's first libidinal choice via the autoerotic zones, and then under the Oedipus complex where the autoerotic zones had finally become more fully organized and directed to an object beyond the ego. His first use of object then was as an external person who had something to do with gratifying the instinctual drive and/or in helping the infant and child to repress it. Phantasies about these objects were not considered internal at this time. Freud used the term "father complex" to denote the importance of this external presence. The "mother complex" was not to be formulated until many years later by analysts other than Freud.
Freud counterposed a stage of development between autoerotism and anaclitic object choice which he called narcissism, a stage which was both primary and/or secondary. Primary narcissism was there from the very beginning, but secondary narcissism resulted from a withdrawal of libidinal cathexis from the object