ABSTRACT
It is appropriate to refer to the letter written by Sigmund Freud in 1907, which includes very few pleasantries, but focuses on the emergence of the beginnings of a theory. In Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality Freud refers to the object as a passive agent where drives are discharged. It was still early for Karl Abraham to question this stance. He would go on to take a genetic point of view that considered the object as an active participant in the creation of the self. Dementia praecox, obsessive neurosis, and manic-depressive states were the principal clinical disorders that impelled him to reconsider psychoanalytic theory. The object was still external, but in this paper he notes: Dementia praecox destroys the person's capacity for sexual transference that is for object-love. In hysterics one can often find this affection morbidly increased towards one person, and changed into violent aversion towards another.
