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… we take for granted the synthetic nature of the processes of the ego. But we are clearly at fault in this. The synthetic function of the ego, though it is of such extraordinary importance, is subject to particular conditions and is liable to a whole number of disturbances.
An early scheme by K. Abraham in 1921 considered that in the course of development there are four fundamental stages, three in relation to different illnesses: the first stage was the one from narcissism to autoerotism; the second was that of object love with a sadistic-anal organisation; the third was that of object love with a genital organization; the fourth corresponded to normality: object love with genital organisation, control of organic innervation and the capacity to deal with psychic stimuli. (Abraham, 1921, p. 325).
This scheme is considerably modified in his longer paper of 1924: he divided the oral, anal and genital stages into primary and secondary, and he included together with these stages of libidinal organization the characteristics of the development of object love; and in the latter there was a pre-ambivalent stage (objectless, narcissistic, auto-erotic) and at the other extreme, the post-ambivalent object relation; between these two poles, that is, between the first oral stage (of sucking) and the final genital stage, he included ambivalences.115