Klein: Object Relations Theory Flashcards
Klein: When is the mother-child relationship most critical for personality development?
The first 4 – 6 months
Klein: An important part of any relationship is the internal psychic representations of what?
Early significant objects, such as the mother’s breast or the father’s penis
Klein: An important part of any relationship is the ___ of early significant objects, such as the mother’s breast or the father’s penis.
Internal psychic representations
Klein: Infants ____ psychic representations of early significant objects and ____ them onto an external object (another person).
Introject, project
These internal pictures are not accurate – they’re remnants of earlier experiences.
Klein: The ego can sense both destructive and loving ___, or both a nurturing and frustrating ____.
forces, breast
Klein: According to Klein, when does the ego begin to exist?
At birth
Klein: How do infants deal with the nurturing breast and frustrating breast?
Split objects into good and bad, including their own ego, giving them a dual image of self.
Klein: How does Klein differ from Freud in terms of superego?
Klein believed it existed earlier than Freud speculated, and that it grows with the Oedipal process rather than being a product of it.
Klein: T/F: During the early female Oedipus complex, a girl has a positive feeling for her mother’s breasts and fear of her father’s penis
False – Ideally, she adopts a feminine position and has a positive feeling both for her mother’s breasts and for her father’s penis, which she believes will feed her with babies.
Klein: In female Oedipal development, describe ideal and less ideal outcomes.
Ideal : Girl takes feminine positions and has positive relationships with both parents.
Less ideal: Girl sees mom as a rival and fantasize robbing her mother of her father’s penis and stealing her mother’s babies.
Klein: T/F: With most girls, the female O. complex is resolved without any jealousy toward their mom.
True
Klein: A little boy adopts a ___ position during the early Oedipal years.
Feminine
Klein: T/F: Upon adopting a feminine position during early Oedipal years, a boy fears being castrated as punishment for his sexual feelings for his mother.
False – he has no fear of being castrated in the early Oedipal years.
Klein: Later in the male Oedipal development projects his ___ onto his father, who he fears will ___
Destructive drive, bite or castrate him.
Klein: What are phantasies?
Psychic representations of unconscious id instincts. Infants, even at birth, possess an active phantasy life.
Klein: When is the male Oedipal complex resolved?
When the boy establishes good relations with both parents and feels comfortable about his parents having sex together.
How does Klein differ from Freud?
Klein:
• Focus on 4 – 6 mos, not 4 – 6 yrs.
• Stresses intimacy & nurturing of mother (vs. Freud’s power/control of dad)
• Human contact/relatedness, not sexual pleasure – prime motive of behavior.
• Superego existed much earlier, grows with Oedipal process, not a product of it.
• Big part of OC is child fear of retaliation for fantasizing emptying parent’s body.
How does Klein differ from Freud on the Oedipus complex.
• Begins in earliest months of life. Freud felt it started in Phallic stage.
* Significant part of O. complex is fear of retaliation for fantasizing emptying parent’s body.
• Importance of child having positive feelings to both parents during O years.
* During early stages, OC serves both genders’ need to est. pos. attitude with the good object and avoid bad object.
Summarize Klein’s Object Relations Theory
- Mother-child relationship in first 4-6 mos. critical to personality development
- Infant’s drives (hunger, etc.) are directed to an object (breast, penis, etc.)
- Infants introject internal psychic representations of early objects and project on another person.
- To deal with the nurturing and frustrating breast, they split both it and their own ego into good/bad
- During OC, both genders develop feminine position
- Female OC resolved without any jealousy toward mom.
- Male OC is completed when he feels positive feelings to both parents and is ok with them having sex.
Klein: When dealing with good/bad feelings, infants organize their experiences into ____.
Positions
Klein: What are the two basic positions in which infants organize their experiences?
Paranoid-Schizoid
(organizing experiences w/ paranoid feelings and splitting objects into good/bad.)
Depressive
(anxiety over losing a loved object (mom) combined with guilt for wanting to destroy the object)
