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(1974). Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 22:743-768

Mature Love: Prerequisites and Characteristics

Otto F. Kernberg, M.D.

IN AN EARLIER PAPER (1974), I described some intrapsychic prerequisites for falling in love and remaining in love, and examined the consequences of failure to establish these prerequisites. I proposed that two major developmental stages must be achieved in order to establish the normal capacity for falling and remaining in love: a first stage, when the early capacity for sensuous stimulation of erogenous zones (particularly oral and skin erotism) is integrated with the later capacity for establishing a total object relation; and a second stage, in which full genital enjoyment incorporates earlier body-surface erotism in the context of a total object relation, including a complementary sexual identification. I also described a continuum in the capacity for falling in love and remaining in love, illustrating this continuum with case material highlighting the particular prerequisites that need to be fulfilled at each stage of development of this capacity. In elaborating these fi

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