Object Relations Theory & Klein: Personality Ch. 5

Object Relations Theory

• Based on observations of young children

  • Focused on first 4-6 months after birth

  • Place emphasis on the importance of the child’s relation to mother’s breast

  • Served as a prototype for later relations with whole objects (i.e., other people)

• The early relations with ‘partial objects’ is unrealistic and requires the use of fantasy

  • These early fantasy-based experiences impacts all later interpersonal relationships

• Places great importance on early experiences with the mother

  • Infants have basic needs cared for by the mother

  • Infants develop a safe symbiotic relationship with the mother

  • In this relationship, the mother is “all-powerful”

  • Infants eventually emerge from the mother’s protection and establish their own individuality

Biography of Klein

• Born in Vienna, Austria

• Lived from 1882 until 1960

• Was introduced to psychoanalysis and the ideas of Freud as a patient when she was experiencing a period of depression following her mother’s death in 1914 (she was 32)

• Expanded Freudian theory by focusing on the analysis of children

• Had a bitter and acrimonious relationship with her oldest daughter Melitta

• Was influential in developing use of psychoanalysis in London

How does the Object Relations Theory differ from Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory?

• Object Relations Theory (ORT) deemphases the importance of internal, biological drives and instead focuses on the importance of interpersonal relationships

• ORT is less interested in the power and control of fathers, and instead focuses on the importance of intimacy and nurturing of mothers

• ORT rejects that sexual pleasure is the key motive behind human behaviour, and instead places emphasis on the importance of the need for human contact and relatedness

• ORT extend Freud’s ideas by examining how the infant’s real or fantasized early relations with the mother and breastfeeding

  • This becomes the basis for all later interpersonal relationships

• ORT assumes that our mental representation of relationship partners is based on objective factors, but also subjective projections based on early childhood experiences

An ‘Object’

• An ‘object’ in this model is the thing through which the aim is satisfied

• Can be a partial person (i.e., body parts), a whole person, or some other thing (e.g., a stuffed toy animal)

• Infants introject external objects like the mother’s breast into their own mind

• More than just internal representations of external world

• Become important fantasies about representing important objects in concrete and physical terms

Phantasies

• Refer to psychic representation of unconscious id instincts for infants

• Unconscious images of “good” and “bad”

• Infant is too young to use language

• Phantasies can be contradictory and illogical

• Unconscious id instincts

Positions

• Infants initially experience the world as series of either good or bad feelings

• Working through this dichotomy is achieved by infants organizing their experiences into positions

Paranoid-Schizoid Position

• Infants have a biological predisposition to attach a positive value to the nourishment from the mother’s breast (life instinct/pleasure principle); and a negative value to hunger and neglect (death instinct)

• This position allows the infant to split the world into good and bad

  • Good – the ideal breast, which provides love/comfort/gratification

  • Bad – the persecutory breast, which is absent/hurtful and the target of aggressive feelings

• Sets the stage for handling ambivalent feelings toward others during adulthood

Depressive Position

• Feelings of anxiety about losing a loved object combined with guilt for previously wanting to destroy that object

• As the infant develops into months 5-6, they gain a more realistic view of external objects

• That is, objects can be “whole” and contain good and bad elements simultaneously

• Infant realizes that the mother has the potential to go away, potentially forever

• This is linked with fear of loss and feelings of guilt for all of the aggressive phantasies from earlier in life

• Children try to make reparation for the previous aggression and gain the ability to feel empathy

• Resolution of this position involves children closing the split between good and bad mother

• Not resolving the defensive position linked to problems in adulthood like lack of trust, extreme mourning responses, etc.

Internalizations

In ORT, internationalizations refer to taking aspects of the external world (i.e., introjections) and organizing them into a meaningful psychological framework

Ego

• Becomes organized during first months of life

• Evolves from infant’s first experience with feeding

  • Good breast vs bad breast split becomes the prototype for other objects

Superego

• Also emerges early in life

• Klein felt that the early superego was harsher and crueler than Freud’s notion of the superego

Oedipal Complex

ORT holds that handling sexual desire for parents is also key to personality development

John Bowlby

• British born psychiatrist (1907-1990)

• Trained in child psychiatry under Melanie Klein

• Criticized ORT for lack of empiricism and inadequacies relating to predicting human motivation

• Integrated ORT with ethology and evolutionary theory

Attachment Theory

• Attachments formed in childhood have important impacts on adulthood

  • E.g., views on the self and of relationship partners

• Attachment theory has two main assumptions:

1. A responsive and accessible caregiver must create a secure base for the child

• Creates perceptions of accessibility and dependability and creates confidence and security

2. A bonding relationship (or lack thereof) becomes internalized and serves as a mental working model on which future close relationships are build

• Relationship works both ways: infant and caregiver must both respond to and influence each other

Separation Anxiety

• Typical stages: protest, despair, detachment

• Children who experience detachment with primary caregiver have superficial interpersonal relationships that lack warm as they get older

Hazard and Shaver

• ~15,500 citations

• Extended the idea of attachment theory into adult romantic relationships

• Better measurement tools later developed

• E.g., Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised (ECR-R; Fraley, Waller, & Brennan, 2000)

• Used attachment styles from Mary Ainsworth:

• Secure

• Avoidant

• Anxious-ambivalent

ORT-based Therapy

• Klein’s use of psychoanalysis with children was not initially well accepted by other Freudians

• Replaced techniques used on adults like free association and dream analysis with play therapy

  • Provided child patients with small toys and art materials

  • Assumed that young children express their conscious and unconscious wishes through play

• Klein used verbal attacks from children as an opportunity to interpret the motives behind the attacks

• Klein encouraged her patients to re-experience early emotions and fantasies but this time with the therapist there to point out the differences between reality and fantasy, conscious and unconscious

Related Research to Klein’s Theories

• Attachment theory (which is derived from ORT) has received strong empirical support

  • E.g., children with secure (vs insecure) attachment show higher well-being and stronger friendships as adults

  • E.g., children with secure (vs insecure) attachment have more positive daily emotional experiences and less difficulty coping with negative emotions during conflict within romantic relationships

  • E.g., adults with avoidant attachment have less desire to learn information about relationship partners

  • E.g., adults with insecure attachment styles have more emotional reactivity during romantic conflict

• Children who experience childhood physical and/or sexual abuse have been shown to associate personal relationships as a cause of pain

  • Internalized their traumatic experiences as part of their mental model of relationships

Issues with Object Relations Theory

• Whereas attachment theory rates well based on the criteria from chapter 1, ORT’s rating is mixed

• ORT is derived from Freud’s theories, and thus is also plagued with unfalsifiable ideas

• ORT provides a way to organize psychology of infants and children, which can be seen as a strength

• ORT has been helpful to practitioners and other theorists (e.g., Bowlby)

• That said, Klein’s original description of ORT was not parsimonious and used needlessly complex phrases and concepts

Object’s Relation Theory’s Concept of Humanity

• Determinism

• Pessimism and optimism

• Causality

• Unconscious determinants of behaviour

• Social influences on personality

• Similarities