HATRED AS THE CORE AFFECT OF AGGRESSION

I propose that affects, that is, psychophysiological structures that, from the beginning of life, regulate infant/mother interactions and re present a phylogenetically recent survival system for highly dependent infant mammals, constitute the ''building blocks'' of drives. From th is perspective, libido and aggression, the dual drive structure propos ed by Freud, would constitute respectively, the hierarchically supraor dinate integration of corresponding pleasurable or rewarding, and pain ful or aversive affects. Sexual excitement, in this view, is the core affect of libido, and rage, the core affect of aggression. Hate is a d erivative of rage, reflecting the chronic, stable, characterologically anchored psychic structuring of an internalized object relation betwe en an aggressive, punishing object and a frightened, mistreated, and e nraged self. The psychopathology of aggression is characterized by a p redominance of hate as part of the drive structure (the motivational s ystem) of the individual. The motivational contents of hate include, a t progressive levels of severity, the wish to control the object, to m ake it suffer, and to destroy it. Intense dependency on the hated obje ct, repetitive efforts to externalize this intrapsychic system and to escape from the internal persecution derived from hate characterize th e transferences controlled by this affect. Clinical transferences cont rolled by hate include psychopathic and paranoid transferences, the sy ndrome of ''arrogance''; severely self-mutilating and chronic parasuic idal behavior; severe sadomasochistic transferences, and the developme nt of ''perversity'' in the transference, that is, the recruitment of love at the service of aggression. An essential condition of the treat ment of patients dominated by hate is to provide a firm frame to the t reatment, a frame that sets strict limits to the acting out of destruc tive and self-destructive behavior, while the therapist simultaneously analyzes the effects of this limit setting in the transference, and t he corresponding activation of hate dominated internalized object rela tions in the transference relationship. The alternative identification by the patient with the perpetrator and victim of aggression in the i nteraction with the therapist facilitates the clarification of hate do minated internalized object relations, and their gradual elaboration i n the transference. It is essential that, as part of this development, the patient learns to accept and even to ''enjoy'' the hateful aspect s of his self, as a preliminary development before the eventual integr ation of hate with the typically split of positive internalized relati onships in which a loving dependency is aspired. Such an integration t ransforms paranoid into depressive types of transferences, and signals the beginning of improvement.