Freud derived object love from the self-preservative instincts through narcissism and auto-erotism. Alice Balint offers a variant theory: object love arises from the vicissitudes of an archaic love existing between mother and child. The child demands that the mother be without needs or interests of her own and that she ask nothing in return for her love. This demand, not governed by reality, we see in the love relationships of certain patients and most clearly in transference love. Conversely, the mother in this archaic, mutual love regards the child as hers, entirely at her disposal. Mother-child love therefore resembles that of the partners in coitus who need not be concerned about each other's needs for each automatically and perfectly satisfies the other.

But between the archaic mother-child love and coital love lies a period of development in which reality sense comes to govern the child as he perceives that he is replaceable and that the mother has interests of her own which he