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= D.: Objekt.–Es.: objeto.–Fr.: objet.–I. oggetto.–P. objeto.
Psycho-analysis considers the notion of object from three main points of view:
I. In correlation with the instinct: the object is the thing in respect of which and through which the instinct seeks to attain its aim* (i.e. a certain type of satisfaction). It may be a person or a *, a real object or a phantasied one.
II. In correlation with love (or hate): the relation in question here is that between the whole person, or the agency of the ego, and an object which is itself focussed upon in its totality (person, entity, ideal, etc.).
III. In the sense traditional to the philosophy and psychology of knowledge, in correlation with the perceiving and knowing subject: an object is whatever presents itself with fixed and permanent qualities which are in principle recognisable by all subjects irrespective of individual wishes and opinions (the adjective corresponding to this sense of ‘’ is ‘objective’).
In psycho-analytic literature the word ‘’ occurs both alone and in many compound forms such as ‘’*, ‘object love’, ‘object-loss’, ‘’*, etc.–terms which may confuse the non-specialist reader. ‘’ is understood here in a sense comparable to the one it has in the literary or archaic ‘the object of my passion, of my hatred, etc.’. It does not imply, as it does ordinarily, the idea of a ‘thing’, of an inanimate and manipulable object as opposed to an animate being or person.
I. These various uses of the term stem from the Freudian conception of the instinct. As soon as he turned his attention to the analysis of the instinct, Freud drew a distinction between the instinctual object and the *: ‘I shall now introduce two technical terms. Let us call the person from whom sexual attraction proceeds the sexual and the act towards which the instinct tends the sexual aim’ 1. This distinction was to be preserved throughout Freud's work; he reaffirmed it notably in the most complete definition of the instinct that he ever offe