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The aim of the present contribution is to give some general account of the special point of view which I have now come to adopt, and which was developed in a series of papers published during the course of the 1939-45 war.2 These papers do not represent the elaboration of a definitely established point of view so much as the progressive development of a line of thought. Nevertheless, the ultimate principle from which the whole of my special views are derived may be formulated in the general proposition that libido is not primarily pleasure-seeking, but object-seeking. The clinical material on which this proposition is based may be summarized in the protesting cry of a patient to this effect—‘You're always talking about my wanting this and that desire satisfied; but what I really want is a father.’ It was reflection upon the implications of such phenomena as this that formed the real starting point of my present line of thought. I suppose there are very few analysts nowadays who would not feel indignant if criticized on the grounds of minimizing the importance of object-relationships in practice. Yet it is not so easy to find an analyst whose acknowledgement of the importance of object-relationships has influenced his adherence to the theoretic principle upon which the classic libido theory is based, viz., that libido is primarily pleasure-seeking. It will, of course, at once occur to the reader that what is meant by ‘pleasure-seeking’ in the classic theory is really ‘relief of libidinal tension’; but my point is that such tension is inherently the tension of object-seeking needs. The claim