Neo-Freudians, Object Relations, and Current Research chp 11

SIGMUND FREUD DIED IN 1939. His theory of the human mind lives on, however. Academic research psychology—the kind done at universities by psychology professors—largely neglects Freudian theory and psychoanalysis, but more than a few modern psychologists continue to maintain Freud’s legacy in one way or another. Some reinterpret his theory or extend it into new domains; others test some of his ideas with empirical research, while still others keep Freud alive just by continuing to argue about him.

Indeed, more than 75 years after his death, a surprising number of psychiatrists, psychologists, professors of English, and even Sanskrit scholars devote entire careers to the seemingly never-ending project of debunking Freud. The goal of many is to prove that he was wrong about absolutely everything from the very beginning (e.g., Crews, 1996, 2017). For example, a book by flamboyant psychoanalyst (and Sanskrit scholar) Jeffrey Masson (1984) stirred the popular media by dredging up material about some of Freud’s more questionable friends and using it to attack Freud’s whole theory.1 Similar works appear on a regular basis.2 As one reporter wrote, “To innocently type [Freud’s] name into a search engine is to unleash a torrent of denunciation. . . . Merely being wrong—as even his partisans admit he probably was about a lot of things—seems inadequate to explain the calumny he has engendered” (J. Adler, 2006, p. 44).

Indeed, the most remarkable aspect of many of these efforts is their vehemence and personal tone. They don’t merely suggest that the modern evidence concerning some of Freud’s ideas is weak. They go much further, arguing that Freud was a liar, a cheat, and a fraud; that he was mean to his family; and that he never had an original idea in his life. They stop just short of arguing that his books should be pulled from the library shelves and burned in the public square. Are attacks like these a proportionate response, or might a deeper explanation be lurking? As psychiatrist Glenn Gabbard commented, “The unconscious is terribly threatening. It suggests we are moved by forces we cannot see or control, and this is a severe wound to our narcissism” (cited in J. Adler, 2006, p. 44). Psychoanalytically inclined psychologist Drew Westen adds that “any theory that is entirely comfortable to discuss is probably missing something very important about what it means to be human” (Westen et al., 2008, p. 86).

A more constructive development has been the work by clinical practitioners and theorists who—amid varying degrees of acknowledgment of or expressed opposition to the “Big Guy”—have introduced a number of refinements. Some are minor adjustments in summaries of Freud’s work to help it make sense in a modern context. I did plenty of adjusting of my own in the previous chapter. Other amendments are more drastic. Carl Jung set up his own version of psychoanalysis, adding some mystical ideas far removed from the way Freud thought. But Jung’s spiritual angle—influential as it has been with some people—is unusual.

The theme of most post-Freudian psychoanalysts is to move away from his emphasis on built-in sexual and aggressive instincts, toward a focus on the interpersonal aspects of life. A special concern is the way that early attachments, especially with parents, affect perceptions of, and relations with, other people. The important insight taken from Freud is that our relationships with other people depend upon our mental images of them, and these images sometimes do not much resemble the way they actually are. These partially accurate mental images are called objects, and the modern school of psychoanalysis that deals with their origin and implications is called object relations theory. A close relative of object relations theory is attachment theory which, as will be discussed in Chapter 16, focuses specifically on how attachments to significant other people, called attachment figures, and our images of such attachments can be a buffer in times of stress (Bowlby, 1988; Shaver & Mikulincer, 2005).

This chapter aims to bring Freud into the present day by summarizing some of the ways his theory has been reinterpreted and altered since his death, focusing on a few prominent neo-Freudian theorists. Then I will summarize some modern empirical research that has tried to test various psychoanalytic ideas, and conclude by placing psychoanalytic theory—old and new—into perspective, considering some of its shortcomings and accomplishments.

INTERPRETING FREUD

Modern writers who work to make sense of Freud may shade their summaries in various ways that try to maintain the spirit, if not the letter, of Freudian law. I did this in Chapter 10 when I described how a child trying to understand gender roles might look to a role model, such as the same-sex parent, for guidance. The dynamic process is different from the one Freud originally had in mind, but the result is still that boys usually identify with their fathers and girls with their mothers.

Only a fuzzy boundary separates interpreting a theory versus revising it. Freud wrote hundreds of articles and dozens of books over more than six decades, and he changed his mind about important issues more than once. So it is no small or insignificant activity to interpret what he said or meant to say, to determine the overall meaning of his work, or to decide the best way to summarize it. A particular challenge is to interpret Freud’s theory in a way that sounds reasonable today, because that will require some changes. The original theory is, after all, nearly a century old.

Many psychologists and historians have attempted this task, with widely varying results. Peter Gay’s (1988) monumental biography of Freud includes a thorough and insightful survey of the development of Freud’s theory and a firm defense of it. Charles Brenner’s (1974) useful outline of psychoanalytic concepts merges Freud’s ideas with Brenner’s own insights and updates. The preceding chapter of this book likewise constitutes more of a sympathetic interpretation than a literal retelling of Freud. I merged what Freud said with what I think he meant to say or should have said, and even mixed in some ideas contributed by later thinkers in the Freudian tradition.For example, I altered the traditional story of the Oedipal crisis because I don’t think the original makes much sense in light of more recent research about socialization. Thus, my version changes (some would say distorts) Freud’s original theory. I also reinterpreted libido by describing it as the “life drive,” rather than having it be all about sex. Again, this changes—in fact it directly contradicts—some of Freud’s writings, but I prefer to interpret them in terms of what makes sense to me today. I even messed with Freud’s description of the stages of personality development. Influenced by the great neo-Freudian theorist Erik Erikson (1963) and modern theories of life-span development outlined in Chapter 7, the summary in Chapter 10 describes how each stage is associated not just with physical maturation and bodily sensations but also with the changing demands of the social world.

The more you become tempted to “fix” Freud by mixing in other thinkers and ideas and inserting your own ideas, the more you become an active developer of psychoanalytic theory yourself. It was Anna Freud, not her father, who wrote the definitive survey of the defense mechanisms, some of which were described in Chapter 10. It is probably safe to say Sigmund Freud would approve (he apparently approved of everything his favorite daughter did), since she did not deviate from the spirit of his theories. Many other thinkers have continued to write about psychoanalysis, attempting to stay true to Freud’s theory while extending it.

The theorists who, in later years, continued to develop neo-Freudian psychology are an impressive crew. They include Anna Freud, Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Erik Erikson, Karen Horney, Bruno Bettelheim, Harry Stack Sullivan, Melanie Klein, D. W. Winnicott, Henry Murray, and John Bowlby. You probably have heard of several of them; Erikson, Jung, and Adler number among the major intellectual figures of the 20th century, and the others are not far behind. But it is also an important fact that every individual just named is deceased. Although some neo-Freudians are still around, their golden age has passed.

Most neo-Freudians used the same research methods as Freud himself. They saw patients, looked into themselves, read widely in history and literature, and drew conclusions. These practices are shared by some of Freud’s most vehement critics, such as Jung (an early dissenter) and Jeffrey Masson (a recent dissenter), as well as disciples such as Bruno Bettelheim and Anna Freud.

This approach allows psychoanalysts of every stripe to cover a lot of theoretical ground. It also invokes a style of argument that more conventionally scientific psychologists find frustrating. When Jung argued with Freud, for instance, he would basically say that his cases and introspection showed conclusion A, and Freud would reply no, his own cases and introspection led clearly to conclusion B, to which Jung would reply that anybody can see it’s really A . . . and so forth. Anyone looking for an experiment to settle the matter would search in vain; even if somebody were clever enough to come up with one, neither Freud nor Jung—nor any of the classic neo-Freudians—would allow a mere experiment to settle such profound matters.

Common Themes of Neo-Freudian Thought

Most neo-Freudians differ from Freud in three major respects. First, they view sex as less important than Freud did by reinterpreting libido as a general motivation toward life and creativity. You have already seen such a reinterpretation in the preceding chapter. I view this change of emphasis as a permissible modern reinterpretation; other theorists view this issue as an example of how Freud was simply wrong.3 Freud’s emphasis on sexuality—even in children—has been from the beginning one of the most unsettling and controversial aspects of his theory. Thus, it is not surprising that later theorists have been tempted to clean up psychoanalysis in this respect. Freud believed that those who deemphasized the psychological role of sex did so because of their own anxieties. Their defenses made them unable to face directly the importance of sex and caused them to seek the important bases of behavior elsewhere. This kind of argument is not easily settled: If I say you are wrong about something because of your sexual hang-ups, how can you reply except, perhaps, to say the same about me?

In a second deviation, some neo-Freudians put less emphasis on unconscious mental processes and more emphasis on conscious thought than the Big Guy did. Modern ego psychologists focus on the processes driving the perception and conscious comprehension of reality (Hartmann, 1964; G. S. Klein, 1970; Loevinger, 1976; Rapaport, 1960). Ego psychology looks less like classic psychoanalysis and more like current mainstream psychology (especially the cognitive process approaches considered in Chapter 14), because instead of focusing on sexuality, psychic conflict, and the unconscious, ego psychologists focus on perception, memory, learning, and rational, conscious thinking. According to Jane Loevinger’s influential version, the ego’s function is to make sense of everything a person experiences (Loevinger, 1987). Moreover, Loevinger’s story of development is essentially the story of the development of the ego itself. Early in life, the ego struggles to understand how the individual is separate from the world and from the mother; later, the ego grapples with such issues as how to relate to society, achieve personal autonomy, and appreciate the autonomy of others. According to Loevinger’s test of “ego development,” most people never get much further than learning society’s basic rules and appreciating that some of those rules have exceptions (Holt, 1980). Very few become truly independent individuals who appreciate and support the independence of others.

A third common neo-Freudian deviation puts less emphasis on instinctual drives and mental life as the source of psychological difficulties, and focuses instead on interpersonal relationships. By modern psychotherapeutic standards, Freud was surprisingly uninterested in the daily lives of his patients. Whereas a modern therapist would want to know the details of a patient’s interactions with his spouse, Freud would be more interested in his childhood relationship with his mother. Adler and Erikson both emphasized the way psychological problems arise from day-to-day difficulties relating with other people and with society, and object relations theorists believe that people replay certain key patterns in their relationships throughout their lives.

Inferiority and Compensation: Adler

Alfred Adler (1870–1937) was the first major disciple to end up at odds with the master. Like many others at the time and since, Adler thought that Freud focused too much on sex as the ultimate motivator and organizer of thought and behavior. Of equal or greater importance, Adler thought, was what he called social interest, or the desire to relate positively and productively with other people (A. Adler, 1939).

People intuitively understand that someone secure in his masculinity does not need to prove it through his choice of vehicle, manner of driving, or any other superficial means.

Adler said individuals are motivated to attain equality with or superiority over other people to compensate for whatever, in childhood, they felt was their weakest aspect. This idea, called organ inferiority, implies that someone who felt physically weak as a child will strive for physical strength as an adult, that one who feels stupid will grow into an adult obsessed with being smarter than everyone else, and so on. It matters little whether the child actually was physically weak or relatively unintelligent, only how the child felt.

A particular kind of compensation for the past is seen in the desire of an adult to act and become powerful, because of feeling inadequate or inferior as a child. Adler called this kind of overcompensating behavior the masculine protest. He applied this term to both men and women, but believed the issue to be particularly acute for men. Society tells young boys that males are supposed to be the powerful and dominant gender—and yet, who is the most powerful person during the first years of their lives? Mom, obviously. Adler believed this early experience caused some young men to develop a powerful yearning to prove their dominance, power, and masculinity. One way to do this in modern society is to buy a pickup truck that can be entered only via a ladder, loudly rev the engine, and race up and down the highway, terrifying passersby. However, this kind of behavior always rings a little false. I think most people intuitively understand that someone secure in his masculinity does not need to prove it through his choice of vehicle, manner of driving, or any other superficial means. The masculine protest, therefore, is a compensation in response to feelings of inferiority.

Adler’s larger point is that everyone felt inferior as a child, probably in many ways, and the quest to overcome these feelings continues to influence behavior as an adult. This quest can help explain behaviors that otherwise do not seem to make sense—such as driving an implausibly large vehicle to the supermarket—but also much more. Needs for power, love, and achievement all have roots in early experience. An individual’s compensations for perceived childhood inferiorities coalesce into a particular mode of behavior, which Adler called that individual’s “style of life.” Two familiar terms with roots in Adlerian thought are inferiority complex and lifestyle.

The Collective Unconscious, Persona, and Personality: Jung

The next major rebel from psychoanalysis was Carl Jung (1875–1961). (See Jung, 1971a, for a collection of his writings.) His feud with Freud was more dramatic and bitter than Adler’s because Freud had such high hopes for Jung, one of his earliest disciples. For many years, Jung and Freud were close friends as well as colleagues; they exchanged numerous letters and even traveled to America together. Freud declared Jung his “crown prince,” and anointed him the first president of the International Psychoanalytic Association.

But over the years, Jung’s theories departed more and more from Freud’s, to the point that the two men just couldn’t get along any longer. Perhaps Jung’s deviation that most irritated Freud was his increasing interest in mystical and spiritual matters. Freud, a devout atheist, found Jung’s ideas concerning an inner rhythm of the universe (“synchronicity”), transcendental experiences, and a collective unconscious rather hard to take. These ideas became extremely important to Jung, however, and they are a major reason for why he remains famous.

Jung’s best-known idea is the collective unconscious. Jung believed that as a result of the history of the human species, all people share inborn “racial” (by which he meant human) memories and ideas, most of which reside in the unconscious. Some of these are basic images, called archetypes, which Jung believed go to the core of how people think about the world, both consciously and unconsciously. They include “the earth mother,” “the hero,” “the devil,” and “the supreme being.” Versions of these archetypes, sometimes disguised with symbols, show up repeatedly in dreams, fantasies, cultural mythologies, and even modern literature. (Indeed, a school of literary criticism active to this day seeks Jungian archetypes in novels, plays, and cinema.) This seems like an odd idea, but there may be something to it. The snake – another of Jung’s archetypes – shows up frequently in cultures’ foundational stories, such as the Bible, almost always in a sinister role—and research suggests that the human fear of snakes may be innate (Öhman & Mineka, 2003).

Another of Jung’s lasting ideas is the persona, his term for the social mask one wears in public. He pointed out that, to some degree, everyone’s persona is false, because everyone keeps some aspects of their real selves private, or at least fails to advertise all aspects of the self equally. This idea survives in modern social psychology and sociology (e.g., Goffman, 1959); it also influenced object relations theory, considered later in this chapter. The danger, according to Jung, is that an individual might come to identify more with the persona than with the real self. She may become obsessed with presenting a certain image instead of expressing who she really is and what she really feels, and thus become shallow with no deeper purpose than social success. Such people become creatures of society instead of individuals true to themselves.

Another influential Jungian concept is the anima and animus. The anima is the idea, or prototype, of the female, as held in the mind of a male. The animus is the idealized image of the male as held in the mind of a female. These two images cause everyone to have some aspects of the opposite sex in their psychological makeup: A man’s anima is the root of his “feminine side”; a woman’s animus is the basis of her “masculine side.” These concepts also shape responses to the opposite sex: A man understands (or misunderstands) women through the psychological lens of his anima; a woman likewise understands or misunderstands men according to her animus. This can lead to real problems if the idealized woman or man in one’s mind matches poorly with the real women or men in one’s life. This is a common problem, Jung believed, and daily experience would seem to support him on this.

Another key Jungian idea is his distinction between people who are psychologically turned inward (introverts) and those who are oriented toward the external world and other people (extraverts). As we saw in the chapters of Part II, the dimension of extraversion-introversion is one of the Big Five personality traits and has been found in a wide range of psychometric research programs.

Yet another useful Jungian idea is his classification of four basic ways of thinking: rational thinking, feeling, sensing, and intuiting. As Jung wrote,

Sensation establishes what is actually present, [rational] thinking enables us to recognize its meaning, feeling tells us its value, and intuition points to possibilities as to whence it came and whither it is going in a given situation. (Jung, 1971b/1931, p. 540)

Jung believed that everybody uses all four kinds of thinking, but that people vary in which kind predominates. An engineer might emphasize rational thinking, while an artist emphasizes feeling, a detective emphasizes sensation, and a religious person emphasizes intuition. A modern personality test, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI; Myers, 1962), is sometimes used to determine which kind of thinking an individual uses most. Guidance counselors and personnel departments frequently use this test but, as was summarized in Chapter 6, the test is rather infamous among modern personality psychologists for not being very valid.

Jung believed that, ideally, one would achieve a balance among all four types of thinking, although he acknowledged that such an achievement is rare. The distinction between Jung and Freud could be summed up in Jungian terms by saying that Freud emphasized rational thinking, whereas Jung had a more intuitive style. Feminine Psychology and Basic Anxiety: Horney

Karen Horney (1885–1952) did not begin publishing about psychoanalysis until late in Freud’s career, and, unlike Adler and Jung, she never feuded with the master. She is one of the three most influential women in the history of psychoanalysis (the other two being Freud’s brilliant and devoted daughter Anna and the object relations theorist Melanie Klein). Some of Horney’s books are among the best and most readable introductions to psychoanalytic thought (see Horney, 1937, 1950). She also wrote about self-analysis, which she believed could help people through psychological difficulties when professional psychoanalysis was impractical or unavailable (Horney, 1942).

Horney deviated from Freud over an aspect of his theory that many people—especially women—have found objectionable. She disagreed with Freud’s portrayal of women as obsessed by “penis envy” and the desire to be male. As mentioned in Chapter 10, in some of his writing, Freud seems to view women as damaged creatures—men without penises—instead of as whole persons in their own right. Horney found this view implausible and objectionable. If some women wish to be men, she theorized, it is probably because they see men as being freer than women to pursue their own interests and ambitions. Although women might lack confidence and overemphasize their love relationships with men as a source of fulfillment, this is due to the structure of society rather than the structure of bodies.4

Horney’s other contributions fit better into the conventional Freudian mode. She emphasized that adult behavior is often based on efforts to overcome the basic anxiety acquired in childhood: the fear of being alone and helpless in a hostile world. Attempts to avoid such anxiety can cause what Horney called neurotic needs, needs that people feel but that are neither realistic nor truly desirable. These include the needs to find a life partner who will solve all of one’s problems (love-related and otherwise), to be loved by everybody, to dominate everybody, and to be independent of everybody. Not only are these needs unrealistic, they are mutually contradictory. But people often unconsciously try to pursue all of them anyway, which can lead to self-defeating behavior and relationship problems.

Psychosocial Development: Erikson

Erik Erikson (1902–1994) always claimed to be a faithful Freudian, but his innovations in psychoanalytic theory make him Freud’s most important revisionist (see Erikson, 1963, 1968). For example, he pointed out persuasively that not all conflicts take place in the unconscious mind—many conflicts are conscious. A person might have to choose between two (or more) activities, careers, or even lovers. These conflicts can be painful and consequential, as well as completely conscious.

Erikson believed that certain basic conflicts arise at various stages of life. This insight led Erikson to develop his own version of Freud’s theory of psychological development, in which Erikson emphasized not the physical focus of libido, but the conflicts experienced at each stage and their possible outcomes. For that reason, his theory of development is referred to as a psychosocial, as opposed to Freud’s psychosexual, approach (see Table 11.1). Erikson’s psychosocial approach heavily influenced the way I interpreted Freud’s psychoanalytic view of development in Chapter 10. Erikson’s theory covers not just childhood, but psychological change throughout life. In that way, his theory anticipated the study of life-span development, which was considered in detail in Chapter 8.

The first stage, according to Erikson, is basic trust versus mistrust. This corresponds to Freud’s oral stage of very early childhood, when the utterly dependent child learns whether needs and wants will be met, ignored, or overindulged. Given the appropriate ratio of satisfaction and temporary frustration, the child develops hope (which in Erikson’s terminology refers to a positive but not arrogant attitude toward life) and confidence—but not overconfidence—that basic needs will be met.

The next stage, corresponding to Freud’s anal stage, is that of autonomy versus shame and doubt. As the child begins to control bowels and other bodily functions, learns language, and begins to receive orders from adult authorities, an inevitable conflict arises: Who’s in charge here? On the one hand, adults pressure the child to obey, but on the other hand, that child wants control of his own life. Ideally, these wills can strike a balance, but either may win out, leading in some cases to the anal character described in Chapter 10.

Erikson’s third stage, corresponding to Freud’s phallic stage, is that of initiative versus guilt. The child begins to anticipate and fantasize about life as an adult. These fantasies inevitably include sexual ones, as well as various tactics and plans to get ahead in life. Such fantasies are good for a child, Erikson believed, but if adults do not respond to them well, these thoughts can lead the child to feel guilty and to back off from taking initiative in her development toward adulthood. Ideally, the child will develop a sense of right and wrong that is derived from adult teachings but is also true to the child’s developing sense of self. This development leads to a principled adult morality, in which moral rules are applied with flexibility and wisdom, rather than a merely conformist pseudomorality in which rigid rules are followed blindly and without exception. You may have noticed that this stage reinterprets Freud’s phallic stage without the full Oedipal crisis (see Chapter 10).

The fourth stage is industry versus inferiority, during which one should develop the skills and attitudes to succeed in the world of work or otherwise contribute to society. At this time, the child must begin to control his exuberant imagination and unfocused energy and get on with tasks of developing competence, workmanship, and a way of organizing life tasks. This stage corresponds roughly to Freud’s latency period.

At Erikson’s fifth stage, development deviates more widely from the path laid out by Freud. The Freudian account basically stops with the genital stage, which is reached at some unspecified time after puberty, if at all. In Erikson’s view, however, development continues throughout life. The next crisis involves identity versus identity confusion, as the adolescent strives to figure out who he is and what is and is not important. At this stage, individuals choose values and goals that are consistent, personally meaningful, and useful. Close on the heels of the identity conflict comes the competition between intimacy versus isolation. The task here, in young adulthood, is to find an intimate life partner to share important experiences and further development, rather than becoming isolated and lonely.

As one enters middle age, Erikson said, the next conflict is generativity versus stagnation. As a person’s position in life becomes firmly set, does she settle into passive comfort, or begin to turn her concerns to the next generation? The challenge here is to avoid the temptation to simply cash in one’s savings and go fishing, and instead to raise and nurture children and generally to do what one can to ensure the progress of the next generation. I am reminded here of the modern phenomenon of prosperous American retirees who vote overwhelmingly against taxes to support schools. Which choice do you think these people have made between generativity and stagnation?

The final crisis in life occurs late in old age, as one begins to face the prospect of death. The choice here is between integrity versus despair. Does the person regret earlier mistakes and feel that, basically, he blew it? Or from experience, has the person developed wisdom? The test is: After 70, 80, or 90 years of life, does the person have anything of interest and value to say to the next generation? Or not?

In sum, a person progresses in Erikson’s scheme not according to physical or genital maturation, but according to the developmental tasks required at different phases of life. This idea is consistent with the analyses of changes in the Big Five personality traits over the life span reviewed in Chapter 7 (e.g., Roberts et al., 2006). It anticipated modern views of personality development, which now unanimously accept that psychological growth is not limited to little children; it is an ongoing task and opportunity throughout life, up to and including old age.

Object Relations Theory: Klein and Winnicott

We can only relate to other people via the images of them we hold in our minds, and these images do not always match reality.

The most important part of life, the principal source of its pleasure and pain, is probably the relationships one develops. In psychoanalytic terms, emotionally important people are called objects, and the analysis of interpersonal relationships is called object relations theory (J. R. Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983; M. Klein, 1964; Winnicott, 1958, 1965). The key insight of the object relations approach is that we can only relate to other people via the images of them we hold in our minds, and these images do not always match reality. Not surprisingly, mismatch causes problems.

Object relations theory is the most active area of psychoanalytic thinking at present and has generated a huge literature. A search for “object relations” on the PsychInfo database yields more than 8,000 articles. The core ideas go back (naturally) to Freud, who thought the superego was built from childhood identifications with important people, and who also thought that people repeat important psychological patterns in new relationships through the mechanism of transference. Anna Freud pushed this idea further by examining children’s relationships with their parents. Other important object relations theorists include Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott. The work of many other theorists, including the neo-Freudians summarized earlier, is also relevant to object relations, to the extent that these theorists address problems of interpersonal relations (J. R. Greenberg & Mitchell, 1983).

Object relations theory comes in many forms, but almost every version includes four principal themes. The first is that every relationship has elements of satisfaction and frustration, or pleasure and pain. Melanie Klein theorized that the first important object (literally) in the infant’s life is the mother’s breast. The infant quickly discovers that this object is a source of great delight, providing nutrition,warmth, and comfort. So the baby adores the breast. At the same time, the breast can be frustrating—it is not always available and not always full. So the baby hates the breast. The baby’s demands are not reasonable—remember the description of the id’s primary process thinking in Chapter 10. The baby wants everything now, and when the breast cannot or does not provide, the baby is angry.5

This dichotomy leads to the second theme of object relations: the mix of love and hate. Just like the original object, the breast, significant people are sources of both pleasure and frustration. They may give us love, support, and even sexual satisfaction. So we love them. At the same time, they may express annoyance with us, criticize us, and frustrate us. So we hate them. This sad situation is inevitable, in the view of object relations theory. You cannot satisfy someone without also frustrating her sometimes. So love will never be completely unmixed with resentment.

The third major theme of object relations is the distinction between the parts of the love object and the whole person. To the baby, the mother is the breast, at least at first. This is what interests and attracts the baby, not the mother as a person. It is a complex and difficult process, perhaps never completed, for the baby to come to appreciate the mother for more than just what she provides. In the same way, other people in our lives have parts and wholes. One might enjoy a partner’s sense of humor, intellect, body, or money. To what degree is this equivalent to loving the partner himself? From an object relations perspective, it is not equivalent at all. Using a person’s attributes for one’s own enjoyment is very different from loving the whole person. Here, object relations theory intersects with common sense. To love someone’s physique or wallet is not the same thing as loving the person, and to move beyond appreciating superficial aspects of people to relating to them as whole persons is a difficult and perhaps rarely accomplished feat.

The fourth major theme of object relations is that, to some degree, the psyche of the baby (and the adult) is aware of and disturbed by these contradictory feelings. The baby worships the mother’s breast, but, according to Klein, the baby also feels anger (because there is never enough), envy (because the baby desires the breast’s power for herself), fear (because the baby dreads losing the breast), and guilt (if the baby harms the breast, she could lose it). It may not be particularly plausible to attribute all of these complex reactions to a baby, but the overall theme does strike a chord.Let’s say you are fortunate enough to form a relationship with a truly attractive and desirable person. That’s great. The downside may be a set of Kleinian reactions that are more or less unconscious. The very delight in the person’s company may make you frustrated and even angry that he or she is not always available. You may envy the power this person has over you, precisely because of his or her attractiveness. You may fear losing him or her, and the fear is greater the more desirable he or she seems. And finally, you may feel secret guilt over all of these negative reactions, because if you expressed them, the person would probably be annoyed, and might even leave you. No wonder relationships can get so messed up.Melanie Klein developed her theories based, in large part, on her work with children; she was one of the earliest psychoanalysts (along with Anna Freud) to attempt psychoanalytic treatment with the very young. Freud himself dealt almost exclusively with adults’ childhood memories rather than working with actual children. One of Klein’s innovations in child therapy, still widely used, was to use play for communication and diagnosis (M. Klein, 1955/1986). She provided a range of toys, and then observed which ones the child played with, and how; she believed play allowed the symbolic expression of emotions such as hate, anger, love, and fear. From watching children “play pretend” about their parents, for example, she observed how they divide, or split, their important love objects into two parts, one good and one bad. The good part of the object pleases them; the bad part frustrates them. Children wish to destroy the bad part because they fear being destroyed by it (Klein called this the paranoid position), and they wish to worship and protect the good part because they fear losing it (Klein called this the depressive position).

The phenomenon of splitting applies to other love objects as well. The problem, of course, is that people are not neatly divided into good and bad parts; they are indivisible wholes. So both desires—to destroy and to worship—are contradictory and irrational. This situation can lead to some common neurotic defenses. For example, to defend against the (more or less hidden) desire to destroy (the bad part of) a parent, one may idealize him or her. Have you ever heard someone describe her father in terms that were literally too good to be true? Klein believed, in true Freudian fashion, that such idealization is a symptom of underlying hostility being defended against at all costs. She might not be able to accept that her father has flaws, because to do so would expose her anger at those flaws and threaten a loss of his love or the memory of that love. In addition, to the extent that she has identified with her father, he has become a part of her, so to criticize him is to attack herself. She therefore constructs an image of him as having been perfect. People do this with descriptions of their parents, their boyfriends and girlfriends, and even their children. The distortions may be obvious to everyone but the person constructing these images.Pediatrician D. W. Winnicott started his career in child psychology heavily influenced by Klein, but he soon developed his own important additions to object relations theory. One of his ideas that has come into everyday use was his description of what he called the niffle (Winnicott, 1996). The term came from a young patient named Tom, who at age 5 was hospitalized away from his family and took comfort from sleeping with his “niffle,” a small piece of cloth to which he developed an emotional attachment. Tragically, the niffle got lost during the journey home. The loss so upset Tom that he became hostile, stubborn, and annoying to the point that his parents took him to Winnicott for therapy. From this experience, Winnicott formed the idea of the transitional object, which may be a special blanket, stuffed animal, or niffle that the child uses to bridge the gap between private fantasy and reality. The child endows the object with special, almost magical emotional meaning, so it can comfort the child when adult company (or, as Klein would surely say, the breast) is not available. Over time, the object loses its special meaning as the child becomes better able to handle the world without this kind of support.

Objects like these are transitional in two senses. First, they help the child make the change from the time when adults are constantly caring for him, to the time when he must face the world alone. Second, they exist in an interesting transitional state between fantasy and reality. The objects are always real in that there actually is a teddy bear, or a blanket, or whatever the niffle is. (For one of my daughters, the niffle was a toy dinosaur.) But the child gives it a special magic which, importantly, nobody in the family questions. Houses have been turned upside down more than once looking for lost niffles, and for good reason. Objects like this are important, and their use is not limited to children. Adults have sentimental attachments to many things that represent important people in their lives. The most obvious examples are the family pictures many people perch on their desks or living room mantels, and carry in their wallets. The purpose of these pictures and other sentimental keepsakes is to compensate in some small way for the fact that we cannot have our loved ones with us all the time, or forever.6

Another idea Winnicott added to object relations theory was the notion of the false self, which children—and later, adults—learn to put on to please other people. Notice the similarity of this idea to Jung’s notion of the persona. Winnicott believed that, to some degree, putting on a false self is normal and even necessary; ordinary social etiquette and politeness generally require refraining from saying exactly what you think at all times in order to smooth interpersonal relationships. He worried more about some particularly charming children who, he feared, learned to put on a false act in a desperate attempt to cheer up their depressed mothers, at a high cost to the children’s own psychological integrity. Winnicott observed that the false self serves to protect the true self by keeping it invisible: No one can exploit, harm, or even touch the true self if it is hidden behind a big enough false front. The ultimate maneuver of the false self is suicide: If there seems to be no hope that the true self can ever emerge, succeed, and be accepted, then the false self prevents its exposure permanently.

The purpose of psychotherapy, from the perspective of object relations, is to help minimize discrepancies between the true and false selves and, in the classic Freudian tradition, to help the rational resources of the mind work through irrational defenses. The goal is for the client to see the important people in her life as they are, not as the client wishes them to be. Likewise, the client may need help to see these people as whole individuals with a mixture of virtues, vices, and traits in between, rather than splitting them into images of Jekyll-and-Hyde twins who are all good on one side, and all bad on the other. Overcoming these illusions is not easy. On some level, everybody would prefer their important people to be perfect and devoted, and everyone may be on some level outraged that even the most beloved people in our lives fall short of perfection and sometimes disappoint us. Object relations theory retains this idea from Freud: Rationality can win over all. If we think clearly and brush away enough of the neurotic cobwebs, we can do what makes sense and relate to others as real people.As I mentioned earlier, they all seem to be dead. In the publishing business, the chapters in personality textbooks that survey Freud and the neo-Freudians—Chapters 10 and 11 in this book—are sometimes sardonically called the “tour of the graveyard.” Certainly no one of the stature of Jung, Adler, Horney, or Erikson, or even Klein or Winnicott, is actively developing psychoanalytic theory today. Although these thinkers contributed important ideas that continue to be influential, their general approach based on informal observation, clinical experience, and personal insight is the wave of the past. The wave of the near future is conducting experimental and correlational research scientifically to confirm, disprove, or alter specific psychoanalytic ideas using the kinds of evidence that modern psychology generally employs.

Glossary

neo-Freudian psychology

A general term for the psychoanalytically oriented work of many theorists and researchers who are influenced by Freud’s theory.

ego psychology

The modern school of psychoanalytic thought that believes the most important aspect of mental functioning is the way the ego mediates between, and formulates compromises among, the impulses of the id and the superego.

organ inferiority

In Adler’s version of psychoanalysis, the idea that people are motivated to succeed in adulthood in order to compensate for whatever they felt, in childhood, was their weakest aspect.

masculine protest

In Adler’s version of psychoanalysis, the idea that a particular urge in adulthood is an attempt to compensate for one’s powerlessness felt in childhood.

collective unconscious

In Jung’s version of psychoanalysis, the proposition that all people share certain unconscious ideas because of the history of the human species.

archetypes

In Jung’s version of psychoanalysis, the fundamental images of people that are contained in the collective unconscious, including (among others) “the earth mother,” “the hero,” “the devil,” and “the supreme being.”

persona

In Jung’s version of psychoanalysis, the social mask one wears in public dealings.

anima

In Jung’s version of psychoanalysis, the idea of the typical female as held in the mind of a male.

animus

In Jung’s version of psychoanalysis, the idea of the typical male as held in the mind of a female.

object relations theory

The psychoanalytic study of interpersonal relations, including the unconscious images and feelings associated with the important people (“objects”) in a person’s life.It is not easy to come to an overall evaluation of psychoanalytic thought, because it comes into so many varieties and has been expressed in different ways by psychoanalytic thinkers who disagreed with each other on key points. So, when evaluating psychoanalysis, I think it might be wise to focus more on its general themes than on specific theoretical positions. As one writer recently observed:

The idea that large parts of our mental life remain obscure or even entirely mysterious to us; that we benefit from attending to the influence of these depths upon our surface self, our behaviors, language, dreams, and fantasies; that we can sometimes be consumed by our childhood familial roles and even find ourselves re-enacting them as adults; that our sexuality might be as ambiguous and multifaceted as our compendious emotional beings and individual histories—these core conceits, in the forms they circulate among us, are indebted to Freud’s writings. (Prochnick, 2017, p. 20)

It is also possible that to fully and fairly evaluate psychoanalysis, one must go beyond the published evidence. The distinguished 20th-century psychological methodologist, Paul Meehl, observed that in his experience nobody was ever really convinced that psychoanalysis was valid or useful just from reading about it. He said it was necessary to experience being psychoanalyzed, and even to conduct psychoanalyses oneself. In his career, he did both, and ended up concluding that psychoanalysis had a lot to offer toward deep understanding of the human mind. At the same time, he admitted that formal experimental research did not come close to providing enough evidence to really support this conclusion (Meehl, 1989).

As you decide for yourself what to think, I would suggest you keep this point in mind: The criterion for evaluating the psychoanalytic approach (as well as each of the other approaches) is not whether it is right or wrong—it has been said that all theories are wrong in the end—or even whether it is scientific. Instead, evaluate it by asking: Does the approach raise questions you did not previously consider, and offer insight into things you did not understand as well before? On those questions, I suspect, psychoanalytic theory will earn better than a passing grade.SUMMARY

Interpreting Freud

Freud died more than half a century ago, but his theory lives on and continues to stimulate controversy and argument.

Latter-Day Issues and Theorists

Many modern writers have altered Freud’s ideas in various degrees through their summaries and interpretations.

In addition, neo-Freudian theorists proposed their own versions of psychoanalysis. Most of these revised theories include less emphasis on sex and more emphasis on ego functioning and interpersonal relations.

Alfred Adler wrote about adult strivings to overcome early childhood feelings of inferiority.

Carl Jung proposed ideas concerning the collective unconscious; the outer, social version of the self called the persona; the concepts of animus and anima; the distinction between extraversion and introversion; and four basic types of thinking.

Karen Horney developed a neo-Freudian theory of feminine psychology and also described the nature of basic anxiety and associated neurotic needs.

Erik Erikson developed a detailed description of the stages of psychosocial development during which children and adults must come to terms with their changing life circumstances. Unlike Freud, Erikson extended his account of development through adulthood and old age.

The object relations theorists, notably Melanie Klein and D. W. Winnicott, described the complex relationships people have with important emotional objects; they also observed that these relationships mix pleasure and pain, and love and hate. It is difficult to relate to other people as whole and complex human beings, and people often feel guilty about their mixed emotions and need to defend against them.

Current Psychoanalytic Research

Modern psychologists interested in psychoanalysis are bringing rigorous research methodology to bear on some of the hundreds of hypotheses that could be derived from psychoanalytic theory. Evidence has supported some of these hypotheses, such as the existence of unconscious mental processes and phenomena like repression and transference.

Psychoanalysis in Perspective

Research confirms five basic principles that are consistent with psychoanalytic thought, but, in the end, psychoanalysis might best be evaluated not in terms of the answers it has offered, but in terms of the questions it continues to raise.