ABSTRACT
Ever since Freud placed the drives at the centre of his theory of neurosis, motivation has been a primary concern of psychoanalytic theory. So too in therapy, where the classical aim of analysis has been seen as the revealing of hidden (unconscious) motives, which have largely been conceptualized as wishes. The central position of motivation in psychoanalytic theory is also reflected in the fact that various alternatives have been proposed over the years for Freud’s original conceptualization of motivation, replacing Freud’s concept of the drives with other concepts, such as love-hate (Melanie Klein), object-libido (Fairbairn), merger-separation (Mahler), feeling of safety (Sandler), stability of self (Kohut)—but always retaining the cent-rality of motivation in both theory and therapy.1
