This paper can be seen as a sort of summary of the author's 1993 book, in which he presented an overall psychoanalytic theory about the normal and disturbed development of the mind in object relations, as well as how this knowledge can be applied to therapeutic encounters with all levels of disturbed psychic development, with their differing stage-specific and individual manifestations.

Developmental, structural, and dynamic views are emphasized, as well as the guiding and defining role of object relations in the structuring of the mind. Although influenced by many esteemed colleagues, the author claims that his attempt at a unified theory of the normal and pathological structuralization of the mind and