ABSTRACT
In this volume, Michael Balint, who over the years made a sustained and brilliant contribution to the theory and technique of psychoanalysis, develops the concept of the 'basic fault' in the bio-psychology structure of every individual, involving in varying degree both mind and body. Balint traces the origins of the basic fault to the early formative period, during which serious discrepancies arise between the needs of the individual and the care and nurture available. These Discrepancies create a kind of deficiency state.
On the basis of this concept, Balint assumes the existence of a specific area of the mind in shich all the processes have an exclusively two-person structure consisting of the individual and the individual's primary object. Its dynamic force, originating from the basic fault has the overwhelming aim of 'putting things right'. This area is contrasted with two others: the area of the Oedipus complex, which has essentially a triangular structure comprising the individual and two of his objects, and whose characteristic dynamism has the form of a conflict; and the area of creation, in which there are no objects in the proper sense, and whose characteristic force is the urge to create, to produce
TABLE OF CONTENTS
part |31 pages
The Three Areas of the Mind
chapter |5 pages
The Therapeutic Processes and their Localization
chapter |3 pages
Interpretation and Working-Through
chapter |7 pages
The Two Levels of Analytic Work
chapter |6 pages
The Area of the Basic Fault
chapter |4 pages
The Area of Creation
chapter |4 pages
Summary
part |43 pages
Primary Narcissism and Primary Love
chapter |5 pages
Freud's Three Theories
chapter |6 pages
Inherent Contradictions
chapter |6 pages
Clinical Facts about Narcissism
chapter |7 pages
Schizophrenia, Addiction, and other Narcissistic Conditions
chapter |5 pages
Ante-Natal and Early Post-Natal States
chapter |9 pages
Primary Love
chapter |3 pages
Adult Love
part |40 pages
The Gulf and the Analyst's Responses to it
chapter |13 pages
Regression and the Child in the Patient
chapter |5 pages
The Classical Technique and its Limitations
chapter |6 pages
The Hazards Inherent in Consistent Interpretation
chapter |7 pages
The Hazards Inherent in Managing the Regression
part |40 pages
The Benign and the Malignant forms of Regression
chapter |8 pages
Freud and the Idea of Regression
chapter |6 pages
Symptomatology and Diagnosis
chapter |5 pages
Gratifications and Object Relationships
chapter |11 pages
The Various forms of Therapeutic Regression
part |32 pages
The Regressed Patient and his Analyst