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.
The capacity to fall in love depends, within the framework of the author's object-relations theory, upon successful completion of two developmental stages. The first concerns the early capacity for sensuous stimulation of the erotogenic zones (which becomes integrated with a later-developing capacity for the development of an all-absorbing object relationship). The second involves the incorporation of early body-surface eroticism, as part of genital enjoyment, within the context of an object relationship which includes a complementary, mutual sexual identification. The author has also postulated that normal love relations require (a) broadening of the sexual experience via an expanded eroticism derived from the aggression of bisexuality — which then becomes integrated within the heterosexual relationship; (b) deepening of an object-relationship, where pregenital strivings and conflicts become transformed into tenderness, concern and gratitude; (c) a capacity for mutual identification that does not disrupt the stability of one's identification (normally sublimated by the time one is an adult) with the same-sexed parent; and (d) maturation of the superego as manifested by movement beyond infantile morality to adult ethical values.
Tensions that may arise in members of a sexual couple as they are affected by the “group,” by the surrounding society, are discussed in the concluding portions of the article. The author advocates a “healthy skepticism” (on the part of analysts working with couples or with individual members of a couple) toward both social conventionalism and glittering sexual/social utopias; the psychoanalyst must maintain the conviction that intimacy and individual responsibility are essential in a couple's discovering and maintaining sexual enjoyment and love.