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One’s choice of terms always has consequences. So does one’s selection of explanatory frameworks. An instance from one of Winnicotfs case histories illustrates the distance between an orthodox, drive-oriented perspective on object relations and one that assumes that interpersonal relationships may reflect forms of attraction not necessarily fueled by sexual urges. A little girl called Gabrielle, only two years and ten months old, goes immediately to the toy box at the beginning of her sixth therapeutic consultation with Winnicott: “She put the two big soft animals together and said: They are together and are fond of each other’” (1977, 77). Winnicott responds in this instance with a sexual interpretation, one highly characteristic of his former mentor and supervisor, Melanie Klein: “And they are making babies.” Gabrielle, who has already glossed her own play in a very different way (’They are . . . fond of each other”), remarks, “No, they are making friends.” Would Winnicott’s customary, person-oriented mode of interpretation have been more accurate, and functional, at this point than the sexually oriented one? Many contemporary analysts might think so.

When it comes to selecting explanatory frameworks in the field of object relations theory, there is God’s plenty to choose from. To whose work do we turn for guidance? Even if we go first to the theory of object relations explicit and implicit in Freud, we cannot fail to be aware that the ensuing history of the development of object relations theory constitutes a complex and often conflicting response to his work in this area. Can we rely on the innovations of Melanie Klein, who still has many followers? Or can we perhaps find better guidance in the work of Fair-bairn, or Winnicott, or Guntrip, or Sullivan, or Bowlby, or Kohut? Practitioners of various kinds frequendy associate themselves with the object relations theory of a particular individual, Winnicott and Kohut being popular choices these days. Alternatively, many choose to be eclectic, often without thinking about it, by adopting a casual mixture of views: some Freud, for instance, with a helping of Klein, a dollop of Winnicott, and a lacing of Kohut. More commendable than passive eclecticism, surely, are deliberate attempts on the part of theoreticians to effect syntheses of earlier views, such as Kernberg’s attempted integration of “object-relations theory with psychoanalytic instinct theory and a contemporary ego psychological approach” (1976, 131). The problem in this case is that the proposed synthesis may prove to be unworkable because of incompatibilities inherent in the explanatory frameworks.

Virtually all current psychoanalytic schools of thought agree substantially on the fundamental importance of object relations, yet no consensus about these matters exists at present according to Greenberg and Mitchell (1983). To be more precise, they say that “underlying the apparent diversity of contemporary psychoanalytic theory there is a convergence of basic concerns” (2). It would be still more exact to speak not of “a convergence” but, in the plural, of convergences, or groups, of basic concern. Thus, for convenience, one may designate two major groups of object relations theory as drive oriented and person oriented. It may then be asked, should we select a person-oriented theory like those of Sullivan and Fairbairn, or a drive-oriented one like those of Freud and Melanie Klein? Or can we live with both, in a state of enlightened complementarity analogous to living with both wave and corpuscle theories of the behavior of light, as Greenberg and Mitchell imply is possible—and perhaps even desirable insofar as it may give rise to a “creative dialogue” between the two (408; cf. Mitchell, 1988)? Collateral questions then unfold. Is it possible to invest heavily in a person-oriented theory while retaining some interest in drive theory, as Winnicott appears to do? And if we totally reject drive theory, as Bowlby does, how satisfactory is attachment theory, which he considers to be a theory of object relations (1969, 17)? Does the strength of its empirical basis compensate for an orientation to outer reality that slights the inferable existence, volatility, and complexity of intrapsychic constellations of internalized objects, and that in rejecting libido theory neglects to account in any detail for sexual behavior?

The essential problem for the psychoanalyst, as Schafer sees it, is the problem of “finding the right balance” (1983, 293). He refers specifically to how much emphasis should be placed on the “inner world” and the “outer world.” “How much do you talk about real interactions and how much do you talk about the analysand’s fantasizing, particularly the unconscious infantile aspects of what is fantasized?” (292). One can think of other “balancing acts” that need to be considered as well, such as the possible “correct balance” between a self-oriented theory of object relations, such as Stern’s (1985), which not only regards an emergent selfhood as being present in neonates from virtually the beginning of life outside the womb but also privileges self over other in modeling object-relational interactions, and, in contrast, an other-oriented theory such as that of Lacan, for whom autonomy is unthinkable because “man’s desire is the desire of the Other” (1977, 158). Another balancing act would have to deal with the possible equilibrium between models of object relations relying on the concept of a coherent, specialized, centered ego, as in ego psychology, as distinguished from models depending on a decentered conception of self, or “subject,” one dispersed in language and culture, like Lacan’s—or, to take a less extreme and very different instance, the comparatively decentered, systemic conceptualization of behavioral control envisioned by Peterfreund (1971), who rejects the concept of ego in its structural sense.

All terms remain suspect. This chapter, which does not aspire to be a “balanced,” neutral account, or a systematic survey, endeavors to compare the two broad orientations in object relations theory already referred to as drive oriented and person oriented. Other writers employ different sets of terms to make a comparable distinction. Greenberg and Mitchell use “drive/structure model” and “relational/structure model” (20), phrasings that seem to me not only awkward but seriously problematic because of the way they imply a commitment to Freud’s structural theory, a difficulty Mitchell finesses later (1988, viii) by treating object relations as part of a “relational theory” that excludes drive theory and ego psychology. Eagle provides another instance of inconsistent terminology when he writes dichotomously of “Freudian instinct theory” as against “a psychology of object relations” (1984, 19)—as though there were no overlap. In one sense, of course, there is no middle ground here. Yet we need to make room, as Eagle does in his discussions, for elements of object-relational theory in Freud, a situation I try to account for by speaking of the “drive-oriented” object relations theory of Freud and some of his followers without excluding the possibility of the presence of traces of drive theory in the positions of figures who are fundamentally person-oriented, like Winnicott. A clearer, more precise sense of what the terms “drive-oriented” and “person-oriented” are meant to convey will unfold as discussion proceeds. Meanwhile these two categories are intended to provide a set of coordinates in terms of which to argue the claim that contemporary psychoanalysis needs to adopt a person-oriented theory of object relations, more unreservedly than it already has, in order to be free of the defects of Freud’s drive-oriented emphasis and to be responsive to empirical findings and clinical evidence concerning the formative role of interpersonal relationships in human development.