ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a quick summary of key psychoanalytic theories of development that will be used to inform the analysis of the essential issues of development. It looks at the various theories of development that are linked to the concept of “object” in the psychoanalytic tradition. According to P. Buckley, all subsequent theoretical developments in terms of object relations, whether developments or critiques, find their starting point. Whereas the “drive” perspective is more concerned with infantile sexuality and need satisfaction, the relational perspective is more of a love story. The need to love, to be loved, to be esteemed, and to feel secure has nothing fundamentally reprehensible and will not, in the framework of relational perspectives, be interpreted as the transformation of an incestuous desire. In Melanie Kleinian theory, development is achieved through an evolutionary process, starting from the paranoid-schizoid position and ending with the achievement of the depressive position.
