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Freud's dual instinct theory has, like the weather, been thoroughly criticized over the years but no one has done anything much to improve on it. Until recently, previous attempts to rework it have involved trashing the valuable parts of the classical libido theory, which is like throwing out the baby with the dirty water. But psychoanalysts need no longer feel so discouraged because Joseph Lichtenberg has come up with a new and comprehensive theory to replace the dual instinct theory without discarding the valued classical contributions. In his new comprehensive theory Lichtenberg centers on self theory, which he combines with contemporary infant developmental research and clinical findings from psychoanalytic treatment sessions. He focuses on human motivation and delineates five motivational systems, each of which is a response to a basic human need. Each of the five motivational systems is based on clearly observable human behavior that is initially seen in the neonatal period. These five motivational systems exist to a greater or lesser degree in all human beings. They can also be seen during psychoanalytic treatment in the analysand's transference reaction to the analyst.
Lichtenberg's new comprehensive theory of motivation took its present form following his 1983 review of the first few years of the infant's life. From this work he concluded that traditional psychoanalytic drive theory did not explain the infant's motivations. He became convinced that infants were not passive, unrelating, conflicted, and unorganized, as they had been portrayed by the drive theorists. Instead he found them to be organized creatures capable of human relatedness. He further explained the infant's behavior in terms of perceptual-affective-action patterns. He saw each infant as capable of internal symbolic representation of both self and object.
Lichtenberg admits to a theoretical bias toward self-psychological theory. He faults Freud's structural hypothesis for establishing conflict