Object Relation Theories Melanie Klein Object relations theories Focus more on interpersonal relationships (mother–child 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 primary emphasis on personal personal relations, relations, over instinctual instinctual needs, needs, tells us us that unlike Freud, object relations theorists accept social and environmental factors as inuences on personality. object relations theorists tend to agree that the crucial issue in personality development is the child’s growing ability to become increasingly independent of its primary object: the mother he is the mother of object relations theory, !other primary object inner objects he emphasi"ed the #rst $ to % months of a child’s life he assumed babies are born with active fantasy lives that harbor mental representations &images' of Freudian id instincts, which the images temporarily satisfy. For e(ample, a hungry baby can imagine sucking at the mother’s breast and so, for a time, assuage the hunger. fantasies e(perienced e(perienced in infancy, which )lein called inner objects are real and vivid because infants lack the ability to distinguish between real and fantasy worlds *nfants relate, initially, initially, only to parts of objects, and the #rst such part+object for babies is the mothers breast! radually, as the world e(pands, infants relate to whole objects rather than part objects, for e(ample, to the mother as a person rather than solely a breast. "lay therapy )lein developed the new techni-ue of play therapy through which children e(press their thoughts, feelings, and their abundantly rich f antasies #efense Mechanism The early defense defense mechanisms that infants use to control control these intense intense impulses, terrors, and urges are primarily projection, introjection, splittin$, and projecti%e identi&cation, which refers to imaginatively splittin$ 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 signi#cant objects, such as the mother’s breast or the father’s penis, that have been introjected, or taken into the infant’s psychic structure, and then projected onto one’s partner. The ego, according according to )lein, is present present at birth, but but goes through through substantial substantial development as the infant internali"es internali"es the good part+object with which the ego identi#es+the nurturing breast. •
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)lein viewed the death instinct as the cause of the child's inner anieties and felt that the primary aim of therapy is to lower the level of an(iety and modify the harshness of internali"ed persecutory objects. Frued /s )lein First, object relations theory places less emphasis on biologically based drives and more importance on consistent patterns of interpersonal relationships. econd, as opposed to Freud’s rather paternalistic theory that emphasi"es 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 0not se(ual pleasure0as the prime motive of human behavior •
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"hylo$enetic endoment To her, infants do not begin life with a blank slate but with an inherited predisposition to reduce the an(iety they e(perience as a result of the conict produced by the forces of the life instinct and the power of the death instinct. The infant’s innate readiness to act or react presupposes "hantasies These phantasies are psychic representations of unconscious id instincts1 he simply meant that they possess unconscious images of 2good3 and 2bad.3 For e(ample, a full stomach is good1 an empty one is bad. Thus, )lein would say that infants who fall asleep while sucking on their #ngers are phantasi"ing about having their mother’s good breast inside themselves. imilarly, hungry infants who cry and kick their legs are phantasi"ing that they are kicking or destroying the bad breast. This idea of a good breast and a bad breast is comparable to ullivan’s notion of a good mother and a bad mother &see 4hapter 5 for ullivan’s theory'. 6bjects Thus, the hunger drive has the good breast as its object, the se( drive has a se(ual organ as its object, and so on 7ositions positions, or ways of dealing with both internal and e(ternal objects. represent normal social growth and development. The to basic positions are the paranoid*schi+oid position and the depressi%e position . •
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"aranoid*chi+oid "osition *s the splitting of both self and object into good and bad, with at #rst little or no integration between them. the infant fears the persecutory breast! ideal breast, which provides love, comfort, and grati#cation. To control the good breast and to #ght o8 its persecutors, the infant adopts what )lein &9:;%' called the paranoid+schi"oid position, a way of organi"ing e(periences that includes both paranoid feelings of being persecuted and a splitting of internal and e(ternal objects into the good and the bad. paranoid+schi"oid position during the #rst < or ; months of life, during which time the ego’s perception of the e(ternal world is subjective and fantastic rather than objective and real. #epressi%e "osition •
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$th or %th month, an infant begins to view e(ternal objects as whole and to see that good and bad can e(ist in the same person. At that time, the infant develops a more realistic picture of the mother and recogni"es that she is an independent person who can be both good and bad. The feelings of an(iety over losing a loved object coupled with a sense of guilt for wanting to destroy that object constitute what )lein called the depressive position. They reproach themselves for their previous destructive urges toward their mother and desire to make reparation for these attacks. =ecause children see their mother as whole and also as being endangered, they are able to feel empathy for her, a -uality that will be bene#cial in their future interpersonal relations.
7sychic >efense !echanisms -ntrojection )lein simply meant that infants fantasi"e taking into their body those perceptions and e(periences that they have had with the e(ternal object, originally the mother’s breast. 6rdinarily, the infant tries to introject good objects, to take them inside itself as a protection against an(iety. sometimes the infant introjects bad objects, such as the bad breast or the bad penis, in order to gain control over them. ?hen dangerous objects are introjected, they become internal persecutors, capable of terrifying the infant and leaving frightening residues that may be e(pressed in dreams or in an interest in fairy tales such as 2The =ig =ad ?olf 3 or 2now ?hite and the even >warfs.3 "rojection @ust as infants use introjection to take in both good and bad objects, they use projection to get rid of them. 7rojection is the fantasy that one’s own feelings and impulses actually reside in another person and not within one’s body. =y projecting unmanageable destructive impulses onto e(ternal objects, infants alleviate the unbearable an(iety of being destroyed by dangerous internal forces plittin$ *nfants can only manage the good and bad aspects of themselves and of e(ternal objects by splitting them, that is, by keeping apart incompatible impulses. *n order to separate bad and good objects, the ego must itself be split. Thus, infants develop a 7icture of both the 2good me3 and the 2bad me3 that enables them to deal with both pleasurable and destructive impulses toward e(ternal objects "rojecti%e -denti&cation in which infants split o8 unacceptable parts of themselves, project them into another object, and #nally introject them back into themselves in a changed or distorted form. typically split o8 parts of their destructive impulse and project them into the bad, frustrating breast. e(t, they identify with the breast by introjecting it, a process that permits them to gain control over the dreaded and wonderful breast •
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-nternali+ations they mean that the person takes in &introjects' aspects of the e(ternal world and then organi"es those introjections into a psychologically meaningful framework. three important internali"ations are the ego, the superego, and the 6edipus comple(. .$o To Freud, the young child is dominated by the id. )lein, however, largely ignored the id and based her theory on the ego’s early ability to sense both destructive and loving forces and to manage them through splitting, projection, and introjection. one’s sense of self, uperego it emerges much earlier in life it is not an outgrowth of the 6edipus comple( it is much more harsh and cruel. ubsystems an ego+ideal that produces inferiority feelings and a conscience that results in guilt feelings. )lein would concur that the more mature superego produces feelings of inferiority and guilt, but her analysis of young children led her to believe that the early superego produces not guilt but terror. Oedipus /omple 4omple( begins at a much earlier age than Freud had suggested. )lein held that the 6edipus comple( begins during the earliest months of life, econd, )lein believed that a signi#cant part of the 6edipus comple( is children’s fear of retaliation from their parent for their fantasy of emptying the parent’s body. she stressed the importance of children retaining positive feelings toward both parents during the 6edipal years she hypothesi"ed that during its early stages, the 6edipus comple( serves the same need for both genders, that is, to establish a positive attitude with the good or gratifying object &breast or penis' and to avoid the bad or terrifying object &breast or penis' Klein belie%ed that people are born ith to stron$ dri%es0the life instinct and the death instinct! The most crucial sta$e of life is the &rst fe months •
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