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The theme of this issue, the concept of the object, is discussed in general terms by Françoise Coblence and Jean-Louis Baldacci. The intent is to explore the opposing polarities of the notion of object, whether this be the narcissistic object, object in the world, internal and external objects, partial and whole objects, fantasy objects, or the other in reality. Some of the articles in this issue centrally address the concept of the object, whereas others take it up peripherally or tangentially, and still others are quite distant from the theme.
Multiple meanings of the word object began with Freud. In “Instincts and Their Vicissitudes,” he used the term in several senses. On the one hand, he discussed the instinctual object, the partial object, and the means of satisfaction in which reality and hallucination are confused (in French terminology, the object person). On the other hand, Freud spoke of the consistent, total, or whole object, cathected in an ambivalent fashion in an object relationship, the source of real satisfactions and dissatisfactions (in French terminology, the person of the object).
A central problem is that of juxtaposing partial and whole objects, i.e., the rediscovery outside of that which was previously within. Clinical observations and theoretical hypotheses have led to the elaboration of a series of concepts in an effort to deal with this opposition of within and without, of inside and outside, narcissistic relation, mirror relation, and transitionality; all have attempted to interweave to varying degrees the notions of similitude and difference. On the psychic level of the object, these concepts try to take into account intersubjectivity, and are developed within a triadic frame of reference. Thus, a vast field of reflection opens up that can be organized along various axes, including that of the patient with the analyst, who is a composite object that is neither completely the same as the patient nor completely an other. These reflections ma