Book
Primary Love and Psycho-Analytic Technique
Primary Love and Psycho-Analytic Technique collects papers Michael Balint wrote between 1930 and 1952, the earlier ones in Budapest under the influence of Sándor Ferenczi and the later ones in Britain, together with a paper by Alice Balint on the child's love for its mother and the mother's love for her child. The first part revises the psychoanalytic account of early development. Balint questions Freud's primary narcissism and the picture of libido unfolding through fixed pregenital organizations, and argues that the infant is related to objects from the start. Its earliest relation is a passive, archaic object love: the wish to be loved and gratified unconditionally, without effort or return, by an environment it takes for granted. Narcissism, autoerotism, sadism and hate then appear as secondary formations, consequences of and defences against the frustration of this primary love. The same view shapes his account of adult genital love, in which genital satisfaction is fused with pregenital tenderness and with regard for the partner as a person whose interests become one's own. The second part turns to technique. Balint treats the analytic situation as a relationship between two people, in which the analyst's behaviour and personality help shape the transference, and asks for a theory that takes both into account. Building on Ferenczi's technical experiments, he describes how, when regression in treatment reaches the level of primitive object relations, a patient may give up long-standing defensive attitudes and begin to love again in a less anxious and less suspicious way. He calls this phase the "new beginning" and regards it as the final goal of treatment and the mark of a completed analysis. Further papers deal with character analysis, ego strength and its education, transference and countertransference, the changing aims of analytic technique and the termination of analysis. The collection prepared Balint's later work on regression and the basic fault and is a principal statement of the Budapest school's contribution to object-relations theory.
Main ideas
- Primary object love: the infant's first relation is not narcissistic but a passive, archaic love for its objects, the wish to be loved and satisfied unconditionally and without effort by an environment it takes for granted.
- Narcissism is secondary: libido turns back onto the ego only after the environment has failed the infant's primary demands, so primary narcissism is not the starting point of development.
- The pregenital organizations of the libido are not fixed biological stages; their form depends largely on the frustrations and practices of upbringing, while the object relation is the constant underlying them.
- Hate is a residue of primary love: it arises where dependence met disappointment, and serves as a denial of and defence against the archaic wish to be loved.
- In Alice Balint's account, the child's love for its mother is a naive egoism that takes her interests to be identical with its own, and the mother's love answers it by treating the child as a part of herself.
- Mature genital love is more than genital satisfaction: it fuses that satisfaction with pregenital tenderness and adds a lasting regard for the partner, whose wishes and interests come to be shared.
- The analytic situation is a relationship between two people: the analyst's technique and personality help shape the transference and countertransference, and theory must account for both participants.
- Character traits act as rigid defences that restrict the capacity to love and to enjoy, and analysing them is a condition for change.
- The new beginning: when regression in treatment reaches primitive object relations, the patient can give up old defensive attitudes and begin to love again with less anxiety and suspicion; this is the final goal of analysis.
- Paranoid and depressive attitudes are treated as secondary reactions to the frustration of primary love, which the new beginning requires the patient to relinquish.
- A properly ended analysis passes through the new beginning, and its termination is marked by a mixture of mourning and a newly gained freedom.
What it shows
- 1937
Michael Balint introduced Primary love
At the Budapest meeting of 1937 Balint gathers his own findings and those of Alice Balint and Imre Hermann into one thesis: a primary, or primitive, object love comes before any narcissism, every child must pass through it, and all later relations keep traces of it. He collected the papers on it in Primary Love and Psycho-Analytic Technique (1952).