Concept
Drive/structure and relational/structure models
The two families into which Jay Greenberg and Stephen Mitchell sorted psychoanalytic theories in Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory (1983), according to what each takes as the basic stuff of the mind. In the drive/structure model, which begins with Freud, relations with others are derived from the drives: other people matter as targets or means of drive satisfaction, and mental structure grows out of managing drive pressure. In the relational/structure model, which begins with Sullivan's interpersonal theory and Fairbairn's object relations, relations with others come first and mental structure is built out of them. The authors held that the two rest on incompatible views of human nature, and read later theories either as accommodating relational findings inside drive theory (Hartmann, Mahler, Jacobson, Kernberg) or as mixing the two models (Kohut, Sandler).
Read more- Introduced by
- Key works
- 1
- Related
- Relational psychoanalysis
introduced by
- Stephen A. Mitchell 1983 With Greenberg, Mitchell drew the line between theories in which relations with others serve the drives and theories in which relations come first. That division became the founding frame of the relational school.
- Jay Greenberg 1983 Greenberg, Mitchell's co-author on the 1983 book, shares credit for the two-model classification. Unlike Mitchell, he later argued that psychoanalysis cannot do without a drive concept.
gave rise to
- Relational psychoanalysis The school takes its name and starting point from the 1983 split between drive/structure and relational/structure models. It grew from the relational side of that divide.