Psychoanalysis and Motivation [Paperback]

Carrying forward his inquiry into the nature and conditions of normal and abnormal development, Lichtenberg focuses on motivation. His goal is to offer an alternative to psychoanalytic drive theory that accommodates the developmental insights of infancy research while accounting for the entire range of phenomena addressed by the theory of instinctual drives. To this end, he propounds a comprehensive theory of the self, which then gains expression in five discrete yet interactive motivational systems.Introduction. The Self and Other Conceptual Tools. The Motivational Systems Based in the Regulation of Physiological Requirements. The Attachment-Affiliation Motivational System: Part I. The Attachment-Affiliation Motivational System: Part II. The Exploratory-Assertive Motivational System. The Aversive Motivational System. The Sensual-Sexual Motivational System. Model Scenes, Affects, and the Unconscious. Empathy, Motivational Systems, and a Theory of Cure. Hadley, The Neurobiology of Motivational Systems.

Joseph Lichtenberg has for some time been one of the most cogent contributors to the essential task of revising the basic theory of psychoanalysis.  With this new book on the sources of human motivation, he has brought the field measurably closer to the accomplishment of that great joint project.

- John E. Gedo, M.D., Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis

It is hard to guess which of Lichtenberg's accomplishments will be most appreciated by the reader of this extraordinary book - whether it is his drawing a unified theory of motivation from both psychoanalysis and the new infant research studies, or his finding a proper place in theory and practice for all our competing psychoanalytic viewpoints, or his truly pioneering way of identifying the shifting types of need expressed by a patient from minute to minute, this last making Psychoanalysis and Motivation a veritable handblsH