Chapter 5- Klein: Object Relations Theory Flashcards
Klein did not reject Freud’s ideas, but tried to validate them, she extended Freud’s developmental stages downward to the first __ to__ months after birth.
4 to 6
Clines object relations theory differs from Freudian theory in three important ways:
1) it places more emphasis on interpersonal relationships than on biology
2) it stresses the infants relationship with the mother rather than the father
3) it’s suggests that people are motivated primarily for human contact rather than for sexual pleasure
The term _____ in object relations theory refers to any person or part of a person that infants introject, or take into their psychic structure and then later project on to other people
Object
Klein believed that infants begin life with an inherited predisposition to reduce the anxiety that they experience as a consequence of the clash between the life instinct and the
Death instinct
Klein assumed that very young infants possess an active unconscious fantasy life. Their most basic fantasies are images of the good breast and the
Bad breast
Client agreed with Freud that drives have an object, but she was more likely to emphasize the child’s ________ with these objects. Parents’ face, hands, breast, penis.
Relationship
According to Klein, infants organize their experiences into _______, or ways of dealing with both internal and external objects.
Positions
As 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, four instance it’s relationship with the ideal breast and the persecutory breast, Klein believed infants adopt the
Paranoid-schizoid position
According to client, the feelings of anxiety over losing a loved object coupled with a sense of guilt for wanting to destroy that object is called the
Depressive position. Infants experiences around six months of age
To control the anxieties of early infancy, Klein believed that children adopt several psychic defense mechanisms. Name the four
Introjection, projection, splitting, and projective identification
According to Klein this is described as the fantasy of taking into one’s own body the images that one has of an external object, especially the mothers breast.
Introjection
Client described this term as the fantasy that one’s own feelings and impulses reside within another person
Projection
According to Klein, infants tolerate good and bad aspects of themselves and of external objects by _______, or mentally keeping apart incompatible images.
Splitting
According to Klein, this is the psychic defense mechanism whereby infants split off unacceptable parts of themselves, project them onto another object, and finally introject them in an altered form.
Projective identification
After introjecting external objects, infants organize them into a psychologically meaningful framework, a process Klein called
Internalization
In Kleinian theory, three important internalizations are:
The ego, the super ego, and the Oedipus complex
According to Klein, the ego reaches maturity at a much earlier stage than Freud had assumed, she 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. Before a unified ego can emerge, it must first become
Split
Climbs picture of the superego differs from Floyd’s in at least three important ways, it emerges much earlier in life, it is not an outgrowth of the Oedipus complex, and
It is much more harsh and cruel
Contrary to Freud, Klein believed that the Oedipus complex begins during the first few months of life, then reaches its maturity during the ______ stage at about three or four years of age. The same time that Freud had suggested it began.
Genital
Klein believed that a significant part of the ______ ______ is children’s fear of retaliation from their parents for their fantasy of emptying the parents body
Oedipus Complex
Klein stressed the importance of children retaining positive feelings toward both parents during the
Oedipus complex
According to Klein, little boys adopt a feminine position early in life and has no fear of being castrated as punishment, later he projects his destructive drive onto his father, who he fears will castrate him. The male Oedipus complex is resolved when the boy establishes
Good relations with both parents
According to Klein, during the female Oedipus complex, The little girl also adopts a feminine position toward both parents. Sometimes she develops hostility towards her mother, who she fears will retaliate against her and rob her of her babies but in most cases is resolved without any jealousy toward the
Mother
Margaret Mahler expanded on Klein’s theory of object relations in what way? 3 developmental stages
Children passed through a series of three major developmental stages.
Normal autism-the first 3 to 4 weeks of life, infant satisfy their needs with the all-powerful protective orbit of their mothers care.
Normal symbiosis-infants behave as if they and their mother were a symbiotic unit
Separation-individuation- from about four months until three years, children are becoming psychologically separated from their mothers and achieving individuation, or a sense of personal identity
