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Primary [[love ]] is the term proposed by Michael [[Balint ]] to designate the very first [[phase ]] of [[mental ]] [[development]], characterized by a "[[harmonious ]] relation to an undifferentiated [[environment]]" (Balint, 1952), a "mixture that is made harmonious through interpenetration" of the [[individual ]] and his or her environment. This "inevitable" [[primitive ]] phase, which is not associated with an [[erogenous zone]], would become the [[matrix ]] of all [[other ]] [[object ]] relations and leave "vestiges and residues . . . in all the later phases."

This [[concept ]] is [[outside ]] the framework of [[object relations ]] [[theory]], which made its [[appearance ]] during the thirties and considers the [[subject ]] no longer isolated but an integral part of his environment. [[Michael Balint ]] attempted to resolve the [[theoretical ]] polemic between [[Vienna ]] and [[London ]] on the first [[stages ]] of [[psychic ]] [[life ]] (primary [[narcissism ]] or [[sadism]]), by continuing to carry out research in both directions indicated by [[Freud ]] in [[Three ]] Essays on the Theory of [[Sexuality ]] (1905d) and [[Totem ]] and [[Taboo ]] (1912-13a), and by treating "the development of the individual [[sexual ]] function and the development of [[human ]] relations" as inseparable.

Balint emphasized biology—the bond between the [[mother ]] and the [[infant ]] is described as a [[form ]] "[[biological ]] interdependence"—and object relations, "reactions to the [[real ]] influence of the [[world ]] of [[objects]], primarily to the educational methods" that follow. In 1935 Balint made use of the [[work ]] of Sándor Ferenczi (Ferenczi, 1924/1963) and the predominant [[role ]] he gave to object relations, as shown in his [[Clinical ]] Diary of 1932: "Life begins with a [[passive ]] and exclusive love object. Infants do not love. They must be loved" (Ferenczi, 1988/1932). He [[identified ]] transferences of this type in certain cures and inferred this primitive [[stage ]] from [[them]].

In 1937 Balint developed a more radical critique of "primary narcissism." Postulating (with Sándor Ferenczi and Alice Balint) the [[idea ]] that object relations [[exist ]] from [[birth]], he suggested replacing the [[Freudian ]] perspective with the [[notion ]] of "primary love." This concept better accounts for subsequent clinical approaches to [[transference ]] during the [[treatment ]] of [[psychotic ]] [[patients]], as well as during treatment of the pre-[[oedipal ]] [[material ]] of [[neuroses]]: the [[demand ]] for "primitive," "naïve," "innocent" [[gratification ]] (Balint, 1952), and calm or passionate responses to gratification or [[frustration ]] by the [[analyst]]. During the stage of "primary love" all the infant's [[needs ]] are [[satisfied]], but those of the mother are as well; the two protagonists are equally satisfied and gratified. If this [[satisfaction ]] is [[lacking ]] (in the infant or the mother), "relational tensions . . . can result in the appearance of all kinds of ego distortions in the infant or [[neurotic ]] phenomena in the mother." Balint articulates this stage and its pathologies in a new theory of the "basic fault." Although the term is not in widespread use and has even been neglected, and in spite of its restriction to dyadic relations, the changes in [[technique ]] that it brings [[about ]] in [[order ]] to avoid "malignant regressions" has influenced [[analysts ]] of borderline or psychotic patients.