ABSTRACT
What ties us to our objects? Is it love and gratitude – a sense that we have been given something freely, that we value it and can tolerate that we need the other person to provide this for us? Or is it envy and grievance – a sense that we are locked in dispute with the one whom we feel has deprived us of something good that should have been ours? Another way of looking at this is to ask whether the tie to our objects is one that supports our development and separateness or one that keeps us enslaved to the object by whom we feel deprived.
