Study of Anal Object Relations

The aim of this work is to clarify the concept of anal object relation according to the genetic instead of the descriptive approach.

My endeavour concentrates on demonstrating a cathectic modality which is specific to the anal stage and essentially different from the cathexes deriving from other psychosexual phases. The establishment of an 'anal structure' is linked to this specific cathectic modality the effects of which are expressed in the course of psychosexual development economically, topographically, and dynamically.

The perspective from which I view the problem is that of an opposition between oral and anal strivings, therefore a pregenital development which is dialectic. At its centre there is the concept of narcissism. I think this point of view favours an historic approach; indeed, it seems certain to me that we must lean towards the use of concepts which can be based on genetics, independent of historic factors. The latter can be used with success in our analytic technique, but they are only tools whose efficiency depends on the prior existence of potentialities deriving from genetics.

I have collected in a previous work (Grunberger, 1959) some fragmentary views on orality. I tried to bring out the essential characteristic of the oral-narcissistic universe: it is open and limitless. At this stage all of the activities of the infant are copied from one modality; his introjective activity is limited only by his powers of libidinal investment and his excretory activity submits to the same modality: his waste products flow passively out of his body.1 It is a physiological discharge; and the source of gratification which it represents for the child still retains the characteristics of the oral-narcissistic phase. Even the aggression generated in the child by frustration is modelled on the same oral-narcissistic scheme. It is tension which flows out and only incidentally makes contact with that which is in its way. It brings a certain relaxation, but