Theoretical and Clinical Aspects of Ambivalence

Communication and Problematic Integration: Understanding Diverging Probability and Value, Ambiguity, Ambivalence, and Impossibility

“…Psychoanalytic writings offer several provocative ideas about this sort of ambivalence. Holder's (1975) review of Sigmund Freud's work describes several phases in the latter's thinking about ambivalence. For ex.ample, Holder (1975) asserts that Freud's late writings characterized ambivaleiice as conflict arising from incomplete "fusion" or "integration" of love, which is a manifestation of the sexual drive, and hate, which is a manifestation of the aggression drive.…”

“…Holder's (1975) review of Sigmund Freud's work describes several phases in the latter's thinking about ambivalence. For ex.ample, Holder (1975) asserts that Freud's late writings characterized ambivaleiice as conflict arising from incomplete "fusion" or "integration" of love, which is a manifestation of the sexual drive, and hate, which is a manifestation of the aggression drive. By comparison, Kris (1984) espouses a broader psychoanalytic view, arguing that the essence of conflicts of ambivalence is the divergence of opposing components of an object: the co-presence of antithetical pairs of qualities.…”

“…For example, the young child quite naturally finds a parent to be loving (the source of all comfort) and hateful (the source of punishment and apparent indifference). And Holder (1975) points out from the writings of Freud, the greater the love for a parent, the more hated any parental reprimand or shortcoming.…”

“…While some degree of ambivalence can be tolerated, it becomes pathological when feelings are intense, equal, and antithetical (see Holder, 1975). Through a variety of psychological defenses, the individual can fend off the pains of ambivalence.…”

Do we need the concept of “splitting” to understand borderline structures?

“…This would be the case if there were an emotive-affective relation to one object alone which represented the whole object world. As Abraham (1982), Akhtar (1994), Bios & GalatzerLevy ( 1987), Blum ( 1983), Brierley ( 1936), Anna Freud (1945), Holder (1975, Melanie Klein (1935), Rangell ( 1982), Stolorow & Lachmann ( 1978) have assumed, it seems that in this case, the only option the child has to resolve its ambivalence is to split the primary object up into a primitive idealized part object and an aggressive part object, projecting its own aggressions onto that aggressive part object. These are the conditions under which the child can develop the illusion that the idealized part object will protect him/her from the aggressive part object.…”