Libidinal ego

In Fairbairn's model, the split-off part of the ego that stays attached to the exciting internal object, the side of the early parent that aroused need without meeting it. It carries the person's unmet longing and keeps it alive in a repressed, hopeful and frustrated form, and is attacked in turn by the internal saboteur. Fairbairn put it roughly where Freud put the id, but as a structured part of the ego rather than a reservoir of drives.