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Psychoanalysis and Motivation (1989) is Joseph Lichtenberg's comprehensive effort to integrate the findings of infant research into a broader psychoanalytic theory by revising current understandings of the motivation of the prerepresentational self. Written by an experienced analyst, it is a far-reaching attempt to move beyond classical formulations and deserves serious consideration by those interested in the psychoanalytic theory of motivation. The author's model will be briefly summarized, underscoring those aspects which go beyond existing frameworks, followed by a commentary on areas of the argument which remain problematic.
The self, which evolves as “an independent center for initiating, organizing and integrating motivation” (p. 1), is the focal concept in this work. The author's choice of self psychology rather than structural theory as a heuristic tool, evolved from his dissatisfaction with the “machine like and distant” terms of ego psychology and his conclusion that research shows neonates capable of a high level of patterned activity and learning, including the capability for abstraction and selfobject differentiation almost from birth. Thus, infants could not be the “passive, unorganized, unrelated tension ridden creature” portrayed by drive theory.
The author sought to conceptualize motivation in a manner suitable to the inner life of the infant, as well as that of the adult, and which would form a clear continuity between presymbolic and later symbolic eras. He postulated that whatever infants do consistently,