Some implications of new developments in neurobiology for psychoanalytic object relations theory

ABSTRACT

This paper proposes that the primary motivational systems are affect systems, and that libido and aggression represent secondary developments of affect integration. Drives still derive ultimately from neurobiology but are organized and represented in unconscious conflicts between love and aggression expressed in internalized affect-invested object relations. Regarding the development of the dynamic unconscious, conflicts between love and aggression are originally conscious in the context of the primary activation of affect systems in the relation between self and other (mother), but their traces remain only in the behavior patterns, and fragmented affects if extremely traumatic circumstances prevail. Ordinarily, these conflicts are assimilated into a second stage of splitting mechanisms, and if fixated at that stage, expressed as the borderline personality organization. In a normal third stage, identity integration evolves, with the predominance of repressive mechanisms, the establishment of the tripartite intrapsychic structure, and a truly consolidated dynamic unconscious. This paper concludes with an outline of the therapeutic implications of this developmental sequence of intrapsychic organizations.

KEYWORDS:

• Drives
• affect systems
• dynamic unconscious
• object relations theory
• therapeutic strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).