Object Relations Theory

(Melanie Klein)

By: Karen Flood-Capapas

To understand Klein, you
have to think like an infant.
Can you do it?
Outline

I. Biography

II. Basic Assumptions

III. Basic Concepts

A. Psychic Life of the Infant

B. Positions

C. Psychic Defense Mechanisms

D. Internalizations
I. Biography

* Date of birth: March 30, 1882

* Parents:
Dr. Moriz Reizes
Ms. Libussa Deutsch Reizes
* Siblings:
Emilie, Sibonie, Emmanuel
* Husband: Arthur Klein
* Children: Melitta, Hans and Erich
II. Basic Assumptions
Object Relations Theory

• was built on careful observations of young children;

• stressed the importance of the first 4 to 6 months after birth;
• is an offspring of Freud’s instinct theory.
• generally see human contact and the need to form
relationships – not sexual pleasure – as the prime motivation
of human behavior and in personality development.
 Instinct Theory vs. Object Relations
Theory
Instinct Theory ORT
Drive emphasis on consistent patterns
biological drives; of interpersonal
relationships;

Source Paternalistic – Maternalistic –

power and control intimacy/ nurturing
from father; of mother

Motivation sexual pleasure human contact and

relatedness
 What is an object?
• Recall that Freud believed instincts or drives have an impetus, a source, an aim, and an
object.
• Although different drives may seem to have separate aims, their underlying aim is always
the same—to reduce tension: that is, to achieve pleasure.
• In Freudian terms, the object of the drive is any person, part of a person, or thing through
which the aim is satisfied.
• Klein and other object relations theorists begin with this basic assumption of Freud and
then speculate on how the infant’s real or fantasized early relations with the mother or the
breast become a model for all later interpersonal relationships.
• An important portion of any relationship is the internal psychic representations of early
significant 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.
• These internal pictures are not accurate representations of the other person but are
remnants of each person’s earlier experiences.
 III. Basic Concepts
A. Psychic Life of the Infant

1. Phantasies

2. Objects

B. Positions

1. Paranoid-Schizoid Position

2. Depressive Position

C. Psychic Defense Mechanisms

1. Introjection

2. Projection

3. Splitting

4. Projective identification

D. Internalizations

1. Ego

2. Superego

3. Oedipus Complex
A. Psychic Life of the Infant

1. Phantasies (fantasies)
• Infants, even at birth, possess an active phantasy life ( should not be confused with the conscious fantasies of
older children and adults; hence, the spelling)

• Are psychic representations of unconscious id instincts represented in images of good and bad (unconscious
images of good and bad)

• Full stomach (good); empty one is bad

• infants who fall asleep while sucking on their fingers are phantasizing about having their mother’s good
breast inside themselves.
• hungry infants who cry and kick their legs are phantasizing that they are kicking or destroying the bad
breast.
• As the infant matures, unconscious phantasies connected with the breast continue to exert an impact on
psychic life, but newer ones emerge as well. These later unconscious phantasies are shaped by both
reality and by inherited predispositions.
2. Objects

• If infants have drives, they must have objects also

• Thus, the hunger drive has the good breast as its object, the sex drive has a sexual organ
as its object, and so on

• Infants relate to these external objects both in fantasy and in reality;

• Earliest object relations are with the mother’s breast; then, face and hands

• In their active fantasy, infants introject, or take into their psychic structure, these
external objects, including body parts

• Introjected objects are more than internal thoughts about external objects; they are
fantasies of internalizing the object in concrete and physical terms.

• For example, children who have introjected their mother believe that she is
constantly inside their own body.
B. Positions
• Klein (1946) saw human infants as constantly engaging in a basic conflict between the life
instinct and the death instinct (between good and bad, love and hate, creativity and
destruction.)

• As the ego moves toward integration and away from disintegration, infants naturally prefer
gratifying sensations over frustrating ones.

• In their attempt to deal with this dichotomy of good and bad feelings, infants organize their
experiences into positions, or ways of dealing with both internal and external objects.

• Klein chose the term “position” rather than “stage of development” to indicate that
positions alternate back and forth; they are not periods of time or phases of development
through which a person passes.

• Although she used psychiatric or pathological labels, Klein intended these positions to
represent normal social growth and development.

• The two basic positions are the paranoid-schizoid position and the depressive position.
1. Paranoid-Schizoid Position
• 3 – 4 months of life;
• 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;
• ego’s perception of the external world is subjective and fantastic rather than
objective and real;
• persecutory feelings are paranoid – not based on any real or immediate danger.
• Infants, of course, do not use language to identify the good and bad breast.
Rather, they have a biological predisposition to attach a positive value to
nourishment and the life instinct and to assign a negative value to hunger
and the death instinct.
• This preverbal splitting of the world into good and bad serves as a prototype
for the subsequent development of ambivalent feelings toward a single
person.
2. Depressive Position

* 5th or 6th month;

* feelings of anxiety over losing a loved object
coupled with a sense of guilt for wanting to
destroy it;
* view external objects as whole and to see
that good and bad can exist in the same person
o mother is an independent person who can be
both good and bad;
* realizes that mother might go away and be lost
forever;
resolution
• The depressive position is resolved when children fantasize that they have
made reparation for their previous transgressions and when they recognize
that their mother will not go away permanently but will return after each
departure.

• When the depressive position is resolved, children close the split between the
good and the bad mother.

• They are able not only to experience love from their mother, but also to display
their own love for her.

• However, an incomplete resolution of the depressive position can result in lack

of trust, morbid mourning at the loss of a loved one, and a variety of other
psychic disorders.
Ego maturity:

1. tolerates destructive feelings rather than projecting

them outward;
2. realizes that it lacks the capacity to protect the
mother, experiencing guilt for its previous destructive
urges towards mother.
C. Psychic Defense Mechanisms
Children adopt several defense mechanisms to protect their ego
against the anxiety aroused by their own destructive fantasies.
1. Introjection - infants fantasize taking into their body
perceptions and experiences that they have with the external
object, originally the mother’s breast;
2. Projection - attributing one’s own feelings and impulses to
another person.
3. Splitting - Keeping apart incompatible impulses.
4. Projective Identification - 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.
Projective Identification in adulthood
For example, a husband with strong but
unwanted tendencies to dominate others will
project those feelings into his wife, whom he
then sees as domineering. The man subtly tries
to get his wife to become domineering. He
behaves with excessive submissiveness in an
attempt to force his wife to display the very
tendencies that he has deposited in her.
 Internalizations
the person takes in (introjects) aspects of
the external world and then organizes
those introjections into a psychologically
meaningful framework.
1. Ego

* one’s sense of self;

* reaches maturity at a much earlier stage than Freud
had assumed;
* is mostly unorganized at birth;
* is strong enough to feel anxiety, to use defense
mechanisms and to form early object relations in both
fantasy and reality;
* evolves with the infant’s first experience with feeding.
* before a unified ego can emerge, it must first
become split.
2. Superego

* emerges much earlier in life;

* is not an outgrowth of the Oedipus complex;
* is much more harsh and cruel.
* the early superego produces not guilt but terror
* Klein believed that this harsh, cruel superego is
responsible for many antisocial and criminal tendencies
in adults.
 Klein’s Oedipus Complex
begins during the earliest
months of life
overlaps with the oral and
anal stages; reaches its climax during the genital stage
a significant part of the Oedipus complex is children’s fear of retaliation
from their parent for their fantasy of emptying the parent’s body.

positive feelings toward both parents during the oedipal years; establish
positive attitude with the good gratifying object and avoid the bad object.
Margaret Mahler
• Margaret Schoenberger Mahler (1897–1985) was born in Sopron, Hungary, and
received a medical degree from the University of Vienna in 1923.

• In 1938, she moved to New York, where she was a consultant to the Children’s
Service of the New York State Psychiatric Institute.

• She later established her own observational studies at the Masters Children’s
Center in New York.

• From 1955 to 1974, she was clinical professor of psychiatry at Albert Einstein
College of Medicine
 Margaret Mahler’s View on ORT
• Mahler was primarily concerned with the psychological
birth of the individual that takes place during the first 3
years of life, a time when a child gradually surrenders
security for autonomy.
• By psychological birth, Mahler meant that the child
becomes an individual separate from his or her primary
caregiver, an accomplishment that leads ultimately to a
sense of identity.
Heinz Kohut (1913–1981)
• Heinz Kohut was born in Vienna to educated and talented Jewish
parents (Strozier, 2001).

• On the eve of World War II, he emigrated to England and, a year

later, he moved to the United States, where he spent most of his
professional life.

• He was a professional lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at

the University of Chicago, a member of the faculty at the Chicago
Institute for Psychoanalysis, and visiting professor of
psychoanalysis at the University of Cincinnati.

• A neurologist and a psychoanalyst

Major Theoretical Works:

1. The Analysis of the Self

2. The Restoration of the Self

3. How Does Analysis Cure

4. Self-Psychology and the Humanities

 Freud’s Libido Theory Kohut’s Self Psychology
Source Sexual and aggressive People’s basic need for human
instincts relatedness
Pathological Frustration and repression of Threats and damage to the self
behavior sexual and aggressive
instincts
Heinz Kohut’s View
• Kohut emphasized the process by which the self evolves from a vague and
undifferentiated image to a clear and precise sense of individual identity

• he focused on the early mother-child relationship as the key to understanding later

development.

• Kohut believed that human relatedness, not innate instinctual drives, are at the core
of human personality.

• infants require adult caregivers not only to gratify physical needs but also to satisfy
basic psychological needs.

• In caring for both physical and psychological needs, adults, or self-objects, treat
infants as if they had a sense of self.

• Example: parents will act with warmth, coldness, or indifference depending on

child’s behavior; the infant takes in the selfobject’s responses as pride, guilt, shame,
or envy—all attitudes that eventually form the building blocks of the self.
What is the self?
• “the center of the individual’s psychological universe”

• The self gives unity and consistency to one’s experiences, remains relatively
stable over time, and is “the center of initiative and a recipient of impressions”

• The self is also the child’s focus of interpersonal relations, shaping how he or
she will relate to parents and other selfobjects.

• Nuclear Self
• is developed through a positive interactive process between the child and
the parents within the first 2-3 years of life;
Internal Objects

* are other people;

* are mental representations of people or
things that exist within the self;
* are called self-objects because the
individual experiences them as an integral
part of the self;
* generally denote psychologically important
people who support the cohesion of the
self.
Optimal Frustration

* mother handles the immature, exhibitionistic needs of her child

by adopting a calming, soothing and loving attitude as she
makes clear the unrealistic nature of the child’s strivings,
rather than by acting aggressively toward the child.

Transmuting internalization

*process whereby individuals learn more realistic and

effective ways of thinking, feeling and behaving as a
consequence of interactions with empathic parents.
Narcissistic needs
• Kohut believed that infants are naturally narcissistic.

• The early self becomes crystallized around two basic narcissistic needs:

• (1) the need to exhibit the grandiose self and

• (2) the need to acquire an idealized image of one or both parents.

• The grandiose exhibitionistic self is established when the infant relates to a

“mirroring” self-object who reflects approval of its behavior.
• The infant thus forms a rudimentary selfimage from messages such as “If others see me as
perfect, then I am perfect.”

• The idealized parent image is opposed to the grandiose self because it implies that
someone else is perfect.
• Nevertheless, it too satisfies a narcissistic need because the infant adopts the attitude “You
are perfect, but I am part of you.”
John Bowlby’s Attachment Theory
• he realized that object relations theory could be integrated
with an evolutionary perspective.
• He also took childhood as starting point for his theory and
then extrapolated it forward to adulthood.
• Bowlby firmly believed that the attachments formed during
childhood have an important impact on adulthood.
• Because childhood attachments are crucial to later
development, Bowlby argued that investigators should
study childhood directly and not rely on distorted
retrospective accounts from adults
Three stages of separation anxiety
• The origins of attachment theory came from Bowlby’s observations that both human
and primate infants go through a clear sequence of reactions when separated from
their primary caregivers.

• Bowlby observed three stages of separation anxiety: (1) protest, (2) apathy and
despair, and (3) emotional detachment from people, including the primary caregiver.

• Children who reach the third stage lack warmth and emotion in their later
relationships.
Two fundamental assumptions
• First, a responsive and accessible caregiver (usually the mother) must create a
secure base for the child.
• The infant needs to know that the caregiver is accessible and dependable.
• If this dependability is present, the child is better able to develop confidence and
security in exploring the world.

• Second, a bonding relationship (or lack thereof ) becomes internalized and

serves as a mental working model on which future friendships and love
relationships are built.
• The first bonding attachment is therefore the most critical of all relationships.
• However, for bonding to take place, an infant must be more than a mere passive
receptor to the caregiver’s behavior, even if that behavior radiates accessibility and
dependability.
• Attachment style is a relationship between two people
MARY AINSWORTH
• Mary Dinsmore Salter Ainsworth (1919–1999) was born in
Glendale, Ohio, the daughter of the president of an aluminum
goods business.

• She received her BA, MA, and PhD, all from the University of
Toronto, where she also served as instructor and lecturer.

• During her long career, she taught and conducted research at

several universities and institutes in Canada, the United States, the
United Kingdom, and Uganda.
STRANGE SITUATION
• Developed the Strange Situation, a technique that measures the
type of attachment style an infant has towards his/her caregiver.
• Secure Attachment – infants are confident in the accessibility
and responsiveness of their caregiver, and this security and
dependability provides the foundation for play and exploration
• Anxious-Resistant Attachment – infants give very conflicted
messages.
• Anxious-Avoidant – infants stay calm when their mother leaves;
they accept the stranger, and when their mother returns, they
ignore and avoid her.
 SUMMARY
• Object relations theories assume that the mother-child relationship during the first 4 or 5 months is the most critical
time for personality development.

• Klein believed that an important part of any relationship is the internal psychic representations of early significant
objects, such as the mother’s breast or the father’s penis.
• Infants introject these psychic representations into their own psychic structure and then project them onto an external object,
that is, another person. These internal pictures are not accurate representations of the other person but are remnants of
earlier interpersonal experiences.

• a number of other theorists have expanded and modified object relations theory.
• Margaret Mahler believed that children’s sense of identity rests on a three-step relationship with their mother. First, infants
have basic needs cared for by their mother; next, they develop a safe symbiotic relationship with an all-powerful mother; and
finally, they emerge from their mother’s protective circle and establish their separate individuality.
• Heinz Kohut theorized that children develop a sense of self during early infancy when parents and others treat them as if they
had an individualized sense of identity.
• John Bowlby investigated infants’ attachment to their mother as well as the negative consequences of being separated from
their mother.
• Mary Ainsworth and her colleagues developed a technique for measuring the type of attachment style an infant develops
toward its caregiver