teeth is largely responsible for weaning and with certain exceptions this seems to be the case. At any rate, quite apart from the reaction to pain caused by fissured and inflamed breasts, it is certain that many of the initial slaps administered to the baby are associated with aggressive biting at the nipple. In other words, weaning ends in an atmosphere of punishment or at least loss following aggression. Erotic play with the nipple during actual suckling is a significant feature and equally so sadistic irregularity on the part of the mother, or the definite association of suckling as a means of stilling pain. Indeed, the complicated reactions of the mother particularly in the direction of erotic gratification or aversion during suckling are of the utmost consequence for future instinct modification: these, together with the side tracking of erotic play by the infant to dummy and thumb would require a lecture in themselves. One particular drama deserves more than passing attention, it occurs with increasing frequency when night feeds are discontinued and suckling is preceded by partial undressing. At the critical moment a crack or gap appears in the unbroken curve of the mother's body from which protrudes a large white organ with a brown centre and a pink tip, tiny hands clutch upwards from the immeasurable distance of the lap and the child climbs magically. After a pleasure eternity the baby is once more at a distance, the protruding organ disappears and the chasm closes up, leaving the curve of the body again unbroken.

So much for the individual experience of suckling: only for family Benjamins, however, does the matter rest here. For the others, at a time usually coinciding with the anal-sadistic phase, there is in store the mortification of discovering that from another unbroken maternal curve another organ with a red poll appears the rival baby, during the suckling of which by the fickle mother oral memories are reactivated, although on this occasion with a clearer perception of objects and a more complicated emotional valuation on the part of the jilted baby.

Inadequate as these pictures are, they may help us to form certain generalisations. The first has been put very suggestively by Ferenczi1, viz. that the child at this stage behaves as a direct ectoparasite, the mother's body constituting the first nutritive material. The second is the close relation of suckling followed by sleep to prenatal absolute narcissism, and the third that the nipple provides a point of focus for aggressive and libidinal impulses, a focal point which is ultimately beaten out into a path towards the outer world. This last generalisation really

1 Ferenczi, op. cit.

follows from the first two and brings us to the relations between Instinctdevelopment and Object-formation, the purpose served by the object in instinct economy and part of instinct deflection in object formation.

To begin with, we must remember that instinct tensions are continuous and are only altered by some form of discharge, hence they can be contrasted with stimuli from the outer world from which flight can provide suitable relief. It is this contrast which gradually conduces to separation of the outer world from the self, but the only reality involved is the reality of pleasure and pain. The most urgent of these inner tensions, hunger, is precisely that which brings about the most intimate connection with the nipple object which is, however, not distinguished as an object but as part of the pleasure self. Now whilst these hunger tensions recur constantly, developing an increasing erotic tone, gratification does not follow the same course; it becomes more arbitrary or at least is associated with certain motor expressions such as crying. Even this becomes in time less effective, and the displaceable part of the tension, the erotic part, is side-tracked and gratified autoerotically on the fingers or toes, thereby founding an additional criterion for the outline of the subject, the self-in the sense that one pleasure centre partly refuses to obey the omnipotent will, whilst other centres do obey unconditionally. Here is an enormous step forward: a part of the pleasure self is recognised as detachable, is associated with pain and thwarting. Moreover, it supports the fiction that all sources of inner tension (unlust, pain) can be attributed to outside sources. We can see in this gradual separation of a pleasure ego from a painful outer world the play of mechanisms of projection and introjection whereby inner and outer, originally one, are distinguished, although at first inaccurately. We might say that selfpreservative instincts, at first fused with erotic components, have become isolated into hunger gratification and erotic gratification, whilst owing to lack of differentiation of a real ego, libido has been attached, as it were, by mistake to the object, which becomes progressively more distinct and more multiform. A path has been found for love. At the same time the original destructive instincts of the organism have, in the form of mastery instincts, become tinged erotically, i.e. a fusion has taken place which is ultimately represented by the sadistic component of sexual gratification. A path has been found for hate. This again might be said to have been deflected by mistake on the part of the self. Nevertheless these misapprehensions serve a useful function in that they widen the interests of the self in the outer world. The child seems to find in the outer world a pleasure-pain system, which can be identified with the pleasure and pain of instinct gratification and tension.

It is easy to see how such considerations are of more than theoretical importance. We have only to remember that the fusion and separation out of ego and sex instincts is a gradual continuous process throughout this stage, to realise how a libidinal regression to oral stages at a later period is capable of lighting up the ego point of view appropriate to the earlier period, more particularly the old pleasure-pain point of view of what is outer and what is inner1.

We must now consider the relation of the mouth to the fully formed ego-characteristics. This can be expressed simply in the series incorporation, introjection, identification. It will be seen that the primary autoerotic objectless stage contributes that feeling of unalterable conviction which is the basis of all future identifications. It is the unconscious character of such identifications that the objects identified are the same: in the first instance the subject and all objects are the same for the child. We have seen that following this unity of self and outer world the isolation and investment of objects commences with the breast, so that, as Freud puts it, in the primitive oral phase, object investments and identifications can scarcely be distinguished from one another 2. Moreover the manner of dealing with the object is unique in that the object is actually taken into the mouth, a process of incorporation which has its psychical analogue in the introjection of objects into the ego. That this is something more than a mere resemblance has been shown by Freud in his study of cannibalistic activities and totemistic ceremonials 3. Here we find a phylogenetic link which helps to fill the gaps in observation of child development: the swallowed food is believed by the primitive to bring about an alteration in the character of the subject, actual introjection has been followed by psychical identification. These primary identifications are of a somewhat different nature from the identification of the child with parent which occurs later when these parent objects and certain of their qualities are more definitely recognised, but they contribute enormously to the strength of these later complete object identifications. In a similar way the oral stage may be regarded as moulding

1 For a clear understanding of instinct modification and the polarities of instinct, reference should be made to Freud's fundamental essay, "Triebe und Triebschicksale," Sammlung kleiner Schriften, 4te Folge; also to his Beyond the Pleasure Principle and Das Ich und das Es. In addition, see Ferenczi, "Introjection and Transference" and "Stages in the Development of the Sense of Reality," Contributions to Psycho-analysis, 1916.

2 Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle; see also Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, same series.

3 Freud, Totem and Taboo, English edition. [See also Ferenczi, "A Little Chanticleer," Contributions to Psycho-analysis; Markuszewicz, "Beitrag zum antistischen Denken bei Kindern," Internationale Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse, vi, 1920.]

all subsequent object relations by fusing love and aggression towards one and the same object. At the mouth stage an inner tension, hunger, is dealt with aggressively by muscular movement towards and incorporation of what ultimately proves to be an outer object. But the fact of gratification makes this object a love object: as Freud puts it, at the oral stage of libido organisation amorous possession is still one and the same as annihilation of the object1. In this sense, whilst the nipple provides a path both for love and hate, we can also say that hate precedes and finds a path for love. Keeping in mind, then, the close connection between this archaic ambivalence, introjection and identification at the oral stage, we are better able to appreciate what may happen when, in the course of later identification of complete objects, a sexual striving leads to the formation of love choice towards the complete object of the opposite sex, in other words, we can trace the influence of oral development in the Oedipus situation. In the first place, the erotic striving towards the parent of the opposite sex leads to a hostile attitude towards the parent of the same sex-so that, as Freud puts it, the ambivalence implicit in the original identification becomes manifest2. The second oral contribution occurs when later this erotic striving is abandoned. A tendency then exists to regress to the oral method already mentioned of introjection and identification, the boy adopting feminine characteristics, the girl masculine. In this description we have obviously singled out special aspects of the Oedipus situation to illustrate oral mechanisms, but we might add that in Freud's view all other abandoned object investments are dealt with in this way: it is, as he says, a kind of regression to the oral phase, and to it is due in large part the formation of character3.

It must be clear, of course, that other erogenous zones influence this ambivalent attitude towards objects in addition to playing a part in character formation, and it is essential for us to consider how far these can effect mouth mechanisms. Take, for example, the relation to anal activity. In its primary form mouth gratification consists in swallowing and retention, anal gratification in expulsion. Later on we find a significant change: retention has become one of the anal pleasure features and, although less notable, rejection either in vomiting or breast refusal one of the modes of expression of the mouth. Both are associated with a more definite appreciation of the object and both can express ambivalence towards the object. In the mouth, however, the association of aggression with the eruption of teeth serves to mask this fusion of anal

1 Freud, Beyond the Pleasure Principle.

3 Freud, op. cit.

2 Freud, Das Ich und das Es.

characteristics, so much so that Abraham1 divides the oral stage into an earlier purely autoerotic suckling stage, when there is no object and no ambivalence, and a later narcissistic cannibalistic stage, when ambivalence is expressed for the first time in total incorporation and destruction. As Abraham points out, such divisions are arbitrary in nature and although ambivalence obviously implies the existence of an object, differences in jaw activity from birth would suggest that in the first stage strong dispositions exist which help to determine the degree of later ambivalence. Here again Abraham2 makes the interesting suggestion that the retention activity of the anal sphincter muscles is largely contributed to by the repression of oral ambivalence, or more correctly, of the sucking components.

We have seen that thwarting of the mouth zone from without leads to increased interest in other zones at first more independent or autoerotic in nature. It is easy to understand that the act of urination, especially for the male child with his nipple-like penis, provides many compensations for oral loss; here is an organ which produces precious fluid to command. Not only is this product equated with mother's milk, but, in common with other bodily secretions and excretions, it plays an important part in the infantile sexual theories, especially in the theories relating to babymanufacture. Hence the urinary stage not only provides both direct and regressional autoerotic compensation, but, by the process of identification, continuity between suckling and the ejaculation of semen is established. The oral compensation in ejaculation is more obviously regressive in the case of the male, more in keeping with introjective identification with the mother: insemination provides the woman with direct compensation by the equations: penis nipple; semen = milk. As far as my observation goes, in cases of ejaculatio praecox where emission is not only premature but lacks the usual spasmodic quality, there is in addition to strong urinary interests, a marked oral disposition; it is in this respect a reaction of oral 'impatience.' Other displacements of oral activity are to be found in the fore-pleasure stages of coitus: the kiss, the playful bite, the embrace, the enfolding represent a repetition with varying ambivalence of the swallowing or incorporation stage. In the technique of coitus, the immission of penis, perineal contractions which produce vaginal sucking, the ejaculation of semen and its retention or partial ejection, we have again mouth-nipple parallels which permit direct compensation of oral loss in the case of the woman and regressional identifica1 Abraham, Versuch einer Entwicklungsgeschichte der Libido, I.P.V. 1924. 2 Abraham, op. cit.

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