Fixation (psychology) - Post-Freudians

Post-Freudians

'For Melanie Klein, the fixing of the libido at a given stage is already an effect of the pathological process'. She considered that 'a fixation that leads to a symptom was already on the way to sublimation but was cut off from it by repression'.

Erik H. Erikson distinguished two variants in stage-fixation – that of "zone" and of "mode". Thus at the oral stage there may be 'a zone fixation, i.e., the individual holds on to oral pleasures', or there may be 'a mode fixation...he always wants to get whether by mouth and senses, or by other apertures, receptors, or behaviours. This kind of fixation will later be carried over to other zones'. He instanced the man who 'may eagerly absorb the "milk of wisdom" where he once desired more tangible fluids from more sensuous containers'. His analysand, Eric Berne developed his insight further as part of Transactional analysis, suggesting that 'particular games and scripts, and their accompanying physical symptoms, are based in appropriate zones and modes'.

Heinz Kohut in his exploration of 'the grandiose self...regards it as a fixation upon a normal structure of childhood'.

'The basic idea that people can become fixated in their development has had an important influence on many post-Freudian psychoanalytic theories of criminality, sexual deviancy and aggression'.