"Possessive introjection is the basis of the ego; the soul is something that we can call our own. 'The ambitions of the Id, while that was the sole governing force, were towards
being the thing at the other side of whatever relationship it established. When the Ego takes control of the Id's impulses, it directs them towards
having.' The possessive orientation originates in what Freud calls instinctual ambivalence, i.e., the split between 'good' and 'bad', love and hatred, Eros and Thanatos. The aim of the possessive orientation is to keep the loved object entire and intact: to separate and keep the good, to separate and expel the bad. An either/or or undialectical attitude. What we desire to possess we fear to lose; it is a source of anxiety and we are ambivalent toward it, hate as well as love.
Brophy,
Black Ship to Hell, 56
Cf. Klein and Riviere,
Love, Hate and Redemption, 96-98.
I am what is mine. Personality is the original personal property.
Norman O Brown Love's Body (1966) p.145
