Chapter 4: Object Relations Theory Flashcards
Melanie Klein, the woman who developed a theory that emphasized the _____ and _____ relationship between parent and child
nurturing, loving
Her analyst, _____, was a bitter rival of Melanie Klein
Edward Glover
In contrast to Freud, who emphasized the first 4 to 6 years of life, Klein stressed the importance of the first _____ months after birth.
4 to 6
She insisted that the _____ (hunger, sex, and so forth) are directed to an object—a breast, a penis, a vagina, and so on
infant’s drives
_____ believed that children’s sense of identity rests on a three-step relationship with their mother.
Margaret Mahler
_____ 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.
Heinz Kohut
_____ investigated infants’ attachment to their mother as well as the negative consequences of being separated from their mother
John Bowlby
_____ and her colleagues developed a technique for measuring the type of attachment style an infant develops toward its caregiver.
Mary Ainsworth
One of Klein’s basic assumptions is that the infant, even at birth, possesses an active phantasy life. These phantasies are psychic representations of ___ instincts.
unconscious id
Klein chose the term _____ 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.
“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.
In order to tolerate both these feelings toward the same object at the same time, the ego splits itself, retaining parts of its life and death instincts while deflecting parts of both instincts onto the breast.
Paranoid-Schizoid Position
According to Klein, infants develop the paranoid-schizoid position during the first _____ months of life,
3 or 4
Beginning at about the 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
Depressive Position
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 _____.
Children in the _____ recognize that the loved object and the hated object are now one and the same.
Depressive position
The depressive position is _____ 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.
resolved
Her analysis of young children led her to believe that the early superego produces not guilt but _____
terror
Contrary to Freud’s view, Klein could find no evidence that the little girl blames her mother for bringing her into the world without a _____
penis
Mahler was primarily concerned with the _____ of the individual that takes place during the first 3 years of life, a time when a child gradually surrenders security for autonomy.
psychological birth
By psychological birth, _____meant that the child becomes an individual separate from his or her primary caregiver, an accomplishment that leads ultimately to a sense of identity.
Mahler
To achieve psychological birth and individuation, a child proceeds through a series of three major developmental stages and four substages.
Mahler
Normal Autism - unhatched bird egg
Normal Symbiosis - shell is now beginning to crack
Separation-Individuation
Mahler’s three major developmental stages:
Mahler’s separation-individuation stage into four overlapping substages.
Differentiation
Practicing
Rapprochement
Libidinal Object Constancy
During this time, children must develop a constant inner representation of their mother so that they can tolerate being physically separate from her
. Libidinal Object Constancy
_____ emphasized the process by which the self evolves
from a vague and undifferentiated image to a clear and precise sense of individual identity.
Heinz Kohut
Kohut believed that _____, not innate instinctual drives, are at the core of human personality.
human relatedness
Kohut defined the _____ as “the center of the individual’s psychological universe”.
self
Kohut defined the _____ as “the center of the individual’s psychological universe”.
self
Kohut believed that infants are naturally ______.
narcissistic
The need to exhibit the grandiose self - grandiose exhibitionistic self. “If others see me as perfect, then I am perfect.”
The need to acquire an idealized image of one or both parents - idealized parent image. “You are perfect, but I am part of you.”
Kohut: The early self becomes crystallized around two basic narcissistic needs:
Both narcissistic self-images are necessary for healthy personality development.
Kohut
John Bowlby’s _____ Theory
Attachment
In the 1950s, _____ became dissatisfied with the object relations perspective, primarily for its inadequate theory of motivation and its lack of empiricism.
Bowlby
Protest Stage - caregiver is first out of sight, infants will cry
Despair - as separation continues, infants become quiet, sad, passive, listless, and apathetic.
Detachment - The last stage—the only one unique to humans—is detachment. During this stage, infants become emotionally detached from other people, including their caregiver.
Bowlby observed three stages of this separation anxiety:
Bowlby’s theory rests on two fundamental assumptions:
Responsive and accessible caregiver
Bonding relationship
Mary Ainsworth and the _____ Situation
Strange
Influenced by Bowlby’s theory, Ainsworth and her associates developed a technique for measuring the type of attachment style that exists between caregiver and infant, known as the _____.
Strange Situation
Secure attachment - when their mother returns, infants are happy and enthusiastic and initiate contact
Anxious-resistant attachment style, infants are ambivalent. Pabebe
Anxious-avoidant - infants stay calm when their mother leaves; they accept the stranger, and when their mother returns, they ignore and avoid her.
Ainsworth and her associates found three attachment style ratings:
Klein substituted _____ for Freudian dream analysis and free association, believing that young children express their conscious and unconscious wishes through _____.
play therapy
In addition to expressing negative transference feelings as means of play, Klein’s young patients often _____, which gave her an opportunity to interpret the unconscious motives behind these attacks
attacked her verbally
Object relations has been used to explain the formation of _____ disorders.
eating
Smolak and Levine found that bulimia was associated with _____ from parents.
overseparation (detachment)
Anorexia was associated with high levels of _____ over separation from parents.
guilt and conflict
With regard to measures of _____ disorder, men scored lower than women on all three measures of disordered _____.
eating
In 1986, Morris Bell and colleagues published the _____ (BORI), a self-report questionnaire that identifies four main aspects of object relations: Alienation, Attachment, Egocentricity, and Social Incompetence.
Bell Object Relations Inventory
