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This book is a culmination of the work which Balint has been doing over the last 10 years and includes articles, partially rewritten, which have been published during this period.
In the first section of the book Balint postulates his concept of three areas in the mind: the oedipal area, the area of the ‘basic fault’, and the area of creation. He discusses the different therapeutic factors which are relevant in these areas and explores the clinical implications. The oedipal area, elucidated by Freud, is one in which processes are triangularly structured and the dynamic is conflict. The therapeutic aim is to enable the patient to gain insight into his intra-psychic conflicts. Classical psychoanalytic technique— analyst acting as mirror and using verbal interpretations as his main tool—promotes this.
In the area of the ‘basic fault’, processes are essentially of a primitive two-person kind. Difficulties arise at the earliest stage of development when there is not an adequate fit between infant and environment; the outcome is deprivation, not conflict, and the dynamic is the need to put things right. Words are relatively meaningless, and, if there is to be a therapeutic outcome when there is regression to this area, the analyst has to participate in a primitive two-person situation in which interpersonal interaction is of central importance. In the area of creation, there are no objects as such and the dynamic is the urge to produce.
In the second section of the book Balint summarizes Freud's published statements on primary object relations, primary auto-eroticism and primary narcissism, and various attempts by psychoanalysts to resolve the inherent contradictions. Balint thinks that the intense relation between the infant and the environment, which he calls a ‘harmonious interpenetrating mix-up’, constitutes a very primitive object relation from birth, the object being experienced as a primary substance. He describes the interaction of the infant and environment which br