Fairbairn's internal saboteur 75 years later — A contemporary interpretation

75 years ago Ronald Fairbairn wrote his ground-breaking paper on the endopsychic structure. In contrast to Freud, he wrote about dynamic structures in which he rejected the distinction between id and ego. Moreover, according to Fairbairn, the ego loaded with libido is primary object-seeking instead of pleasure-seeking. Fairbairn considered early object relationships as prototypes for later relational experiences. The present author supplements this vision of the repetition compulsion with ideas from other writers, and describes how a playful attitude can help analyst and patient to integrate all the different object relationships into the central self.