Fixation (German: Fixierung)[1] is a concept (in human psychology) that was originated by Sigmund Freud (1905) to denote the persistence of anachronistic sexual traits.
[2][3] The term subsequently came to denote object relationships with attachments to people or things in general persisting from childhood into adult life.
[9] The new fixation — for example a father-transference onto the analyst — may be very different from the old, but will absorb its energies and enable them eventually to be released for non-fixated purposes.
[10] Melanie Klein saw fixation as inherently pathological[15] – a blocking of potential sublimation by way of repression.
[17] Eric Berne, developed his insight further as part of transactional analysis, suggesting that "particular games and scripts, and their accompanying physical symptoms, are based in appropriate zones and modes".