My closest friend

Love and the search for the lost maternal object

Abstract

This paper discusses our fundamental need to have an intimate ally, a close friend in the form of an internalised, loving and loveable object. It will explore the origins of loving feelings as they relate to the infant's first love affair with mother and how this translates into relationships in later life. It will be argued that many patients in therapy will be needing to get in touch with the preverbal. It will be suggested that training in an infant observation is useful in gaining the skills to treat the infantile aspects of such patients. Projective identification and countertransference will be discussed, as well as the process of breaking through the false self to recognise the deep suffering that the baby and the small child faced as a result of being raised by a narcissistic parent. It will be suggested that psychotherapists may unconsciously be searching for their lost maternal objects in their patients, hence the need for the therapist to have had sufficient therapy in order to be attuned, but separate.