ABSTRACT
This chapter proposes the term self-phase, a phase of the turning back of sexuality on to the fantasmatic internal object. It discusses a revised metapsychology concisely. The chapter begins with the twofold distinction namely instinctual functioning/drive functioning and self-preservation/sexuality. It is crucial to discuss these two contrasts separately at first, in so far as they overlap only partially. The drive/instinct difference is fundamental, and it is regrettable that their confusion has given rise to decades of debate. For years a certain basically Anglo-Saxon tradition continued to struggle with the myth of the originary monad, or with the false problem, raised by Fairbairn, of the drive as pleasure seeking or object seeking, without realizing that the twofold contrast self-preservation/sexuality on the one hand, drive/instinct on the other led to new perspectives.
