Commentary on “Is There a Drive to Love?”

It was one of the strategies of object relations theorists (broadly speaking), including Bowlby and the attachment theorists, to differentiate their approach from the classical Freudian one by dismissing the theory of drives. There were several reasons for this, including the opinion (cited by Yoram Yovell) that it is “mechanistic and reductionistic,” along with the more substantive consideration that despite its being a quantitative concept, drive energy cannot really be observed, let alone quantified and measured, and so is fairly useless for empirical scientific observation and study. It is certainly the case that Freud's emphasis on oedipal dynamics in psychopathology needed to be augmented with equal attention to the events and consequences of the pre-oedipal period and its relationships for a more completely adequate understanding of human mental life and its pathology, as well as of appropriate treatment modalities, to emerge in psychoanalytic discourse. One could, however, imagine that this could have been done in a way that complemented, augmented, and modified existing theory rather than abandoning many of its central ideas.

It is therefore heartening to see that attachment theory is currently re-engaging with key “Freudian” ideas about sexuality, with an eye toward seeing how they might go together rather than taking a more “either—or” position. It appears that some of Bowlby's champions are now aware that he had a restricted view of sexuality, one that limited it to the reproductive copulatory function and did not adequately recognize its manifold subjective dimensions. Yovell's paper stands as an attempt to reconcile the approaches to attachment and sexuality in the domain where they self-evidently come together—that is, romantic love, which includes a sexual dimension as well as the long-term relational bonding of being “in love.” It is therefore a welcome effort, not least because it seeks to resuscitate the concept of “drive,” recognizing that bodily