CriticaLink | Freud: On Narcissism | Terms

Freud terms the child's libidinal investment in the mother an anaclitic object choice, in which sexual instincts are attached to, and determined by, ego-instincts. Adults who engage in anaclitic object choices are governed by the hope that the love object will fulfill their narcissistic needs, as the mother originally fulfilled them. They choose mother- or father-figures as their partners. Freud contrasts anaclitic object choice with narcissistic object choice.

• Adler, Alfred
• Bleuler, Eugen
• Busch, Wilhelm
• Ferenczi, Sándor
• Heine, Heinrich
• Jung, Carl Gustav
• Kraepelin, Emil

• anaclitic object choice
• anxiety neurosis
• cathexis
• Cogito
• dementia praecox
• erotogenicity
• hypochondria
• hysteria
• idealization
• instinct
• introversion
• libido
• narcissism
• narcissistic object choice
• neurasthenia
• neurosis
• Oedipus complex
• paraphrenia
• primary narcissism
• retrogression
• schizophrenia
• sublimation
• superego
• transference neuroses
• Umwelt
• vicissitude