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In his article, “a psycho-analytic approach to the classification of mental disorder”, Edward Glover (11) offers theoretical constructions which represent further development of Freudian Libido Theory. For the purpose of this discussion, a brief account of these theoretical formulations is first essayed. In this account only the salient features are pointed up, and readers are referred to the original paper for details.
Glover maintains that any psychic system, which a) represents a positive libidinal relation to objects or part-objects, b) can discharge reactive tension i.e., aggression and hate against objects), and c) in one or other of these ways reduce anxiety, may be termed an ego nucleus. Thus an oral nucleus gratifies instinct on a part-object (mother's nipple); it can exert aggression against the nipple (sucking, pulling, biting), and is in these ways tension reducing in effect. He conceives of the primitive ego as being polynuclear in the sense of a series of independent organizations; these become more coherent and integrated as the anal-sadistic level of libido organization is reached. Oral elements may dominate the first primitive nucleus and thus justify the term “oral primacy”. However, this term is a relative proposition, for this first nucleus also represents various other erotogenic zones in active function—cutaneous, respiratory, alimentary, excretory and muscular—as well as the muscular reactive systems which discharge aggression. Thus, at the beginning, is a cluster formation of ego-nuclei converging on a consecutive series, the elements of which show an increasing degiee of organization. The cluster and immediately succeeding nuclei represent the fixation point of the psychoses; the last organized nuclei represent the fixation point of the neuroses.
In this connection, Glover states that the “decomposition products” of schizophrenia require the most careful study; in the case of primitive ego-nuclei the object is invariably a “part-object,” and i