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We are inescapably part of the human species: each of us was conceived in, and born from, the body of another: nurtured and reared by others; and only able to grow to full human stature in the society of others. But there exists an equally powerful need to be not solely a member of a family, community, nation, profession or group of any kind, but to be simply oneself. The sense of self is politically enshrined in the notion of the rights of the individual, while the ‘search for the self’ is one of the rallying cries of modern society. This need for others and the parallel need to be separate constitute the two primary tendencies in human nature. The interplay and tension between them - between object relations and individuation - is the theme of this paper, with special reference to their effect on the theory and practise of our work as psychotherapists.
It must be significant that psychoanalysis was created by a man, and that nearly all the original disciples Freud drew around him were also men. The dominant causative explanation of the first analytic period was drive theory, and the master tool of analysis was interpretation. This coterie of men and the transformational potency of language were all in true patriarchal, indeed rabbinic, tradition. Not until the mid-century did drive theory begin to retreat in the face of object relations theory. Thanks to the discoveries of Melanie Klein, reinforced by the radical revisions of W.R.D. Fairbairn, plus the work of an increasing number of child analysts, notably Winnicott but many of them women, the formative influence in human development