ABSTRACT
The historical survey above described the development of the wealth of concepts and ideas related to mental objects in the psychoanalytic literature, and the various theoretical contexts within which they developed. But beyond the various specific concepts that different authors have developed and proposed, it seems that there are a number of conceptual issues central to many of these concepts. It would seem that these conceptual issues, regarding which there are widely differing opinions in the psychoanalytic literature, contribute greatly to the diversity of concepts and ideas. In order to understand the diversity of concepts in the literature, these conceptual issues need to be delineated. In this part of the book I will present a delineation of those conceptual issues that I have found have played a central part in the development of the plethora of concepts described above.
