ABSTRACT
This chapter, 'The change of object' is a crucial step in woman's development. It is the move in which the little girl decathects her mother as the object of love in order to cathect her father. But this definition is inadequate as it ignores many changes which occur simultaneously in the cathexis of the love object, or erogenous zones, and in the structure of the entire ego. In early life, when immaturity precludes object relations and when the infant is as yet unable to distinguish between him and the outer world, the baby goes from moments of need, in which he actively manifests his tensions by cries and gestures, to moments of satisfaction, with varying proportions of active and passive components. The Oedipal triangle apparent at the eighth month is important throughout development. The ambivalent internalized object is projected onto two real objects, one which is felt to be good and the other bad.
