Discussion of the comments on my paper 'Some Implications of New Developments in Neurobiologyfor Psychoanalytic Object Relations Theory'

摘要

I feel very grateful for the careful ways in which the discussants of my paper (2022) have explored the various theoretical and clinical implications of my viewpoint. They have been very helpful in pointing to strengths as well as problems related to my proposals. To begin with, I was pleasantly surprised by the general agreement with the main thesis of the paper, namely, that the basic motivational systems of the psychic apparatus are affect systems, best described in Panksepp's (1998) affect theory. My proposal, that Freud's concepts of libido and aggression reflect an emergent, higher-level system of motivational determination of human experience, that their component affect systems relate directly to the relationship between the individual and the care-taking persons from birth on, in addition to all other object relations that are going to follow, and that these relationships become the fundamental structures of the mind, seems to be accepted by a majority of the discussants. From this viewpoint, then, basic affect systems are the motivational forces leading the individual to significant interactions with others ("objects"), that, in turn, are internalized in the form of units of self-representation and object representation linked by a specific affect.