ABSTRACT
It is a general conviction among scholars that few aspects of S.Freud's work have been as little understood and as much distorted as his contributions to the understanding of love. This chapter explains how this relationship between love and genitality will undergo profound changes in the authors who come after Freud. In M. Balint, affection is no longer, as in Freud, an aim-inhibited libido, but an autonomous impulse, which no longer has to be distinguished from genitality. Primary Love and Psychoanalytic Technique is a collection of essays that appeared in 1952 (written by Balint) about three closely connected topics: human sexuality, object relations, and psychoanalytic technique. Hate, for Balint, is the ultimate remnant, the denial and defence against primitive object love. O. F. Kernberg stands out from other authors because he advocates an interesting approach, describing a continuum between falling in love and remaining in love or achieving a mature, loving relationship.
