Object Relation Theories

Melanie Klein

Object relations theories

Focus more on interpersonal relationships (motherchild
relationship,) with such objects than they do on instinctual drives. Although
drive satisfaction is important, it is secondary to the establishment of
interrelationships.
This primary emphasis on personal relations, over instinctual needs, tells us
that unlike Freud, object relations theorists accept social and environmental
factors as influences on personality.
object relations theorists tend to agree that the crucial issue in personality
development is the childs growing ability to become increasingly
independent of its primary object: the mother
She is the mother of object relations theory,
Mother
primary object
inner objects
She emphasized the first 5 to 6 months of a childs life
She assumed babies are born with active fantasy lives that harbor mental
representations (images) of Freudian id instincts, which the images
temporarily satisfy. For example, a hungry baby can imagine sucking at the
mothers breast and so, for a time, assuage the hunger.
fantasies experienced in infancy, which Klein called inner objects
are real and vivid because infants lack the ability to distinguish between real
and fantasy worlds
Infants relate, initially, only to parts of objects, and the first such part-object
for babies is the mothers breast.
Gradually, as the world expands, infants relate to whole objects rather than
part objects, for example, to the mother as a person rather than solely a
breast.
Play therapy
Klein developed the new technique of play therapy through which children
express their thoughts, feelings, and their abundantly rich fantasies
Defense Mechanism
The early defense mechanisms that infants use to control these intense
impulses, terrors, and urges are primarily projection, introjection,
splitting, and projective identification, which refers to "imaginatively
splitting part of oneself and attributing it to another for the sake of
controlling the other"
infants control their inner needs, establish object relations, and build an inner
world of fantasy through constant cycles of projection and introjection.
internal psychic representations of early significant objects, such as the
mothers breast or the fathers penis, that have been introjected, or taken
into the infants psychic structure, and then projected onto ones partner.
The ego, according to Klein, is present at birth, but goes through substantial
development as the infant internalizes the good part-object with which the
ego identifies-the nurturing breast.
Klein viewed the death instinct as the cause of the child's inner
anxieties and felt that the primary aim of therapy is to lower the level of
anxiety and modify the harshness of internalized persecutory objects.
Frued Vs Klein
First, object relations theory places less emphasis on biologically based drives
and more importance on consistent patterns of interpersonal relationships.
Second, as opposed to Freuds rather paternalistic theory that emphasizes
the power and control of the father, object relations theory tends to be more
maternal, stressing the intimacy and nurturing of the mother.
Third, object relations theorists generally see human contact and relatedness
not sexual pleasureas the prime motive of human behavior

Phylogenetic endowment
To her, infants do not begin life with a blank slate but with an inherited
predisposition to reduce the anxiety they experience as a result of the conflict
produced by the forces of the life instinct and the power of the death instinct.
The infants innate readiness to act or react presupposes
Phantasies
These phantasies are psychic representations of unconscious id instincts;
She simply meant that they possess unconscious images of good and
bad. For example, a full stomach is good; an empty one is bad. Thus, Klein
would say that infants who fall asleep while sucking on their fingers are
phantasizing about having their mothers good breast inside themselves.
Similarly, hungry infants who cry and kick their legs are phantasizing that
they are kicking or destroying the bad breast. This idea of a good breast and
a bad breast is comparable to Sullivans notion of a good mother and a bad
mother (see Chapter 8 for Sullivans theory).
Objects
Thus, the hunger drive has the good breast as its object, the sex drive has a
sexual organ as its object, and so on
Positions
positions, or ways of dealing with both internal and external objects.
represent normal social growth and development. The two basic positions
are the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position.

Paranoid-Schizoid Position
Is the splitting of both self and object into good and bad, with at first little or
no integration between them.
the infant fears the persecutory breast.
ideal breast, which provides love, comfort, and gratification.
To control the good breast and to fight off its persecutors, the infant adopts
what Klein (1946) called the paranoid-schizoid position, a way of organizing
experiences that includes both paranoid feelings of being persecuted and a
splitting of internal and external objects into the good and the bad.
paranoid-schizoid position during the first 3 or 4 months of life, during which
time the egos perception of the external world is subjective and fantastic
rather than objective and real.
Depressive Position
5th or 6th month, an infant begins to view external objects as whole and to
see that good and bad can exist in the same person.
At that time, the infant develops a more realistic picture of the mother and
recognizes that she is an independent person who can be both good and bad.
The feelings of anxiety over losing a loved object coupled with a sense of
guilt for wanting to destroy that object constitute what Klein called the
depressive position.
They reproach themselves for their previous destructive urges toward their
mother and desire to make reparation for these attacks.
Because children see their mother as whole and also as being endangered,
they are able to feel empathy for her, a quality that will be beneficial in their
future interpersonal relations.

Psychic Defense Mechanisms

Introjection
Klein simply meant that infants fantasize taking into their body those
perceptions and experiences that they have had with the external object,
originally the mothers breast.
Ordinarily, the infant tries to introject good objects, to take them inside itself
as a protection against anxiety.
sometimes the infant introjects bad objects, such as the bad breast or the
bad penis, in order to gain control over them. When dangerous objects are
introjected, they become internal persecutors, capable of terrifying the infant
and leaving frightening residues that may be expressed in dreams or in an
interest in fairy tales such as The Big Bad Wolf or Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs.
Projection
Just as infants use introjection to take in both good and bad objects, they use
projection to get rid of them. Projection is the fantasy that ones own feelings
and impulses actually reside in another person and not within ones body. By
projecting unmanageable destructive impulses onto external objects, infants
alleviate the unbearable anxiety of being destroyed by dangerous internal
forces
Splitting
Infants can only manage the good and bad aspects of themselves and of
external objects by splitting them, that is, by keeping apart incompatible
impulses.
In order to separate bad and good objects, the ego must itself be split. Thus,
infants develop a
Picture of both the good me and the bad me that enables them to deal
with both pleasurable and destructive impulses toward external objects
Projective Identification
in which infants split off unacceptable parts of themselves, project them into
another object, and finally introject them back into themselves in a changed
or distorted form.
typically split off parts of their destructive impulse and project them into the
bad, frustrating breast. Next, they identify with the breast by introjecting it, a
process that permits them to gain control over the dreaded and wonderful
breast
Internalizations
they mean that the person takes in (introjects) aspects of the external world
and then organizes those introjections into a psychologically meaningful
framework.
three important internalizations are the ego, the superego, and the Oedipus
complex.
Ego
To Freud, the young child is dominated by the id. Klein, however, largely
ignored the id and based her theory on the egos early ability to sense both
destructive and loving forces and to manage them through splitting,
projection, and introjection.
ones sense of self,
Superego
it emerges much earlier in life
it is not an outgrowth of the Oedipus complex
it is much more harsh and cruel.
Subsystems
an ego-ideal that produces inferiority feelings and a conscience that results in
guilt feelings.
Klein would concur that the more mature superego produces feelings of
inferiority and guilt,
but her analysis of young children led her to believe that the early superego
produces not guilt but terror.
Oedipus Complex
Complex begins at a much earlier age than Freud had suggested. Klein held
that the Oedipus complex begins during the earliest months of life,
Second, Klein believed that a significant part of the Oedipus complex is
childrens fear of retaliation from their parent for their fantasy of emptying
the parents body.
she stressed the importance of children retaining positive feelings toward
both parents during the Oedipal years
she hypothesized that during its early stages, the Oedipus complex serves
the same need for both genders, that is, to establish a positive attitude with
the good or gratifying object (breast or penis) and to avoid the bad or
terrifying object (breast or penis)
Klein believed that people are born with two strong drivesthe life
instinct and the death instinct.
The most crucial stage of life is the first few months