You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
Six decades ago Tausk's (1919) paper on the “influencing machine” increased our sensitivity to the unconscious nature of fantasied mechanical objects. The purpose of this brief article is to stimulate discussion of an actual object's unconscious significance by exploring certain general characteristics of the computer. This means, of course, that I will not be examining the computer with reference to its conscious, or “secondary” purposes — its use in purely computational contexts, its application to planning and systems analysis, in a word, its practical side. Again, because I concentrate only upon what might be called the over-determined features of this object, my discourse may appear one-sided, even extreme. I leave it to others to (1) delineate the psychological nature of the computer in terms of its practical functions, and (2) develop and deepen this preliminary study of “primary” qualities.
For my theoretical orientation I rely upon object relations theory, or the psychoanalysis of what has come to be known as the “British school.” I prefer as foundation the analysis of relations between people, or “objects,” as opposed to the manifestation of “drives.” The baby, in my view, seeks the breast, and not the discharge of his energic orality. As Fairbairn (1952) expresses it, there is a “breast-seeking” stage rather than an “oral” one. Such distinctions are crucial. I also assert, following Winnicott, the overriding importance of “transitional” phenomena in human experience. I am aware of the controversy that flourishes in this area (Elmhirst, 1980), and I cannot go into it here. I view the computer as an aspect of our culture, and our culture as the chief instance of our transitional striving, as the way we achieve what