[Karl Abraham's revolution. From sensual sucking to oral-aggressive destruction wishes]

The author argues that Abraham's paper on "The first pregenital stage of the libido" (1916-17) expounds a new conception of orality, i. e. the idea of a purposeful oral aggression directed against an object. This conception is shown to be contrary to Freud's view of orality as elaborated in his Three Essays as well as in other writings of late 1914 and early 1915. It ignores fundamental dimensions of Freud's thinking, namely the difference between autoerotism/narcissism and object love on the one hand and between libido and aggression on the other, thus representing a basic theoretical change that also had consequences for analytical practice.