Melanie Klein Flashcards
critical time frame for infants
4/ 6 months
infants do not begin life with a blank slate but with ___
- an inherited predisposition to reduce the anxiety they experience as a result of the conflict produced by the forces of the life instinct and the power of the death instinct
- the innate readiness to act or react presupposes the existence of phylogenetic endowment
phantasies
- psychic representations of unconscious id instincts
- they possess unconscious images of “good” and “bad”. e.g. a full stomach is good and a “bad” stomach is empty
- sucking on fingers: phantasizing mama’s good breast inside themselves
- hungry infants crying and kicking: phantasizing that they are kicking or destroying the bad breast
unconscious phantasies connected with the breast continue to __
exert an impact on psychic life, but newer ones emerge as well
later unconscious phantasies are shaped by __
both reality and inherited predispositions
object relations theory therefore is a __
very early tendency of infants to relate to partial objects gives their experiences an unrealistic or fantasy-like quality that affects all later interpersonal relations
objects
- from early infancy children relate to these external objects, both in fantasy and in reality
- in their active fantasy, infants introject or take into their psychic structure these external objects
- introjected objects: fantasies of internalizing the object in concrete and physical terms
positions
- organizing experiences to deal with the dichotomy of good and bad feelings (life and death instinct, love and hate, creativity and destruction)
- alternates back and forth; represents normal social growth and development
paranoid-schizoid position
- alternating experiences of gratification and frustration (like with the breast)
- to tolerate both these feelings toward the same object at the same time, the ego splits itself
- organizing experiences that include both paranoid feelings of being persecuted and a splitting of internal and external objects into the good and the bad
- keep the good breast and bad breast separate
development that follows the paranoid-schizoid position
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
depressive position
- The infant experiences guilt for its previous destructive urges toward the mother. the feelings of anxiety over losing a loved object couple with a sense of guilt for wanting to destroy that object
- children recognize that the loved object and the hated object are now one and the same
development that follows the depressive position
because children see their mother as whole and also as being endangered, they are able to feel empathy for her
resolution of the depressive position
- reparation are made for the prev. transgressions and when they recognize that their mother will return after each departure
- close the split between the good and the bad mother
- experience love from their mother and to display their own love for her
introjection
- infants fantasize taking into their body those perceptions and experiences that they have had with the external object, originally the mother’s breast
- introject good objects as protection against anxiety and sometimes introject bad objects to gain control over them
projection
- fantasy that one’s own feelings and impulses actually reside in another person and not within one’s body
- by projecting unmanageable destructive impulses onto external objects, infants alleviate the unbearable anxiety of being destroyed by dangerous internal forces
- ppl can also project good impulses
splitting
- manage the good and bad aspects of themselves and external objects by splitting them–keeping apart incompatible impulses
- enables them to deal with both pleasurable and destructive impulses toward external objects’
- enables people to see both positive and negative aspects of themselves
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
- by introjecting it back, they identify with that object
- exists only in the world of real interpersonal relations
internalizations
takes in aspects of the external world and then organizes those introjections into a psychologically meaningful framework
ego
- mostly unorganized at birth, nevertheless strong enough to feel anxiety, to use defense mechanisms, and to form early object relations in both phantasy and reality
- all experiences are evaluated by the ego in terms of how they relate to the good breast and the bad breast
superego
- early superego produces terror not guilt
- young children have fears that are greatly out of proportion to any realistic dangers–resides with the infant’s own destructive instinct, which is experienced as anxiety
- this early ego defense lays the foundation for the development of the superego
oedipus complex
- overlaps with oral and anal stage, and reaches climax during the genital stage at around age 3 and 4
- 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
- it is important for the child to retain positive feelings for the parent during this stage
- good attitude with good object and avoid bad object
female oedipal development
- sees the mother as full of good things and wonder how babies are made
- fantasizes that father’s penis provide mother with riches including babies. since the penis is the giver of children, the girl develops a positive relationship with it and fantasizes that her father will give her babies
- will see the mother as a rival; her wish to rob her mother produces a paranoid fear that the mother will retaliate by injuring her or taking her babies
- this anxiety is alleviated only when she later gives birth to a healthy baby
male oedipal development
- a boy shifts some of his oral desires from breast to penis
- feminine position: passive homosexual attitude to father and moves to heterosexual relationship with his mother
- [timeskip] he will develop oral-sadistic impulses toward his father: bite off penis and kill him»_space; arouses castration anxiety
- that convinces him that sexual intercourse with his mother would be extremely dangerous
penis envy
little girl’s wish to internalize her father’s penis and to receive a baby from him
psychological birth
child becomes an individual separate from their primary caregiver which leads to a sense of identity
normal autism
- 3 or 4 weeks
- primary narcissism: unaware of another person
- objectless stage: a time when infant naturally searches for the mother’s breast
normal symbiosis
- 4th or 5th week - 4th or 5th month
- infant behaves and function as though they and their mother were an omnipotent system–dual unity within one common boundary
separation-individualism
- until 30th to 36th month
- psychologically separated from their mothers
- develop feelings of personal identity
Kohut’s view
- infants require adult caregivers not only to gratify physical needs but also to satisfy basic psychological needs
- narcissistic needs: grandiose exhibitionistic self (doting) and idealized parent image
John Bowlby’s attachment theory
separation anxiety: sequence of reactions when separated from their primary caregivers
Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation
critical behavior and how the infant reacts when the mother returns is the basis of the attachment style rating
