Melanie Klein

Question 1

critical time frame for infants

Answer 1

4/ 6 months

Question 2

infants do not begin life with a blank slate but with ___

Answer 2

• 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

Question 3

phantasies

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

unconscious phantasies connected with the breast continue to __

Answer 4

exert an impact on psychic life, but newer ones emerge as well

Question 5

later unconscious phantasies are shaped by __

Answer 5

both reality and inherited predispositions

Question 6

object relations theory therefore is a __

Answer 6

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

Question 7

objects

Answer 7

• 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

Question 8

positions

Answer 8

• 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

Question 9

paranoid-schizoid position

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

development that follows the paranoid-schizoid position

Answer 10

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

Question 11

depressive position

Answer 11

• 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

Question 12

development that follows the depressive position

Answer 12

because children see their mother as whole and also as being endangered, they are able to feel empathy for her

Question 13

resolution of the depressive position

Answer 13

• 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

Question 14

introjection

Answer 14

• 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

Question 15

projection

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

splitting

Answer 16

• 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

Question 17

projective identification

Answer 17

• 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

Question 18

internalizations

Answer 18

takes in aspects of the external world and then organizes those introjections into a psychologically meaningful framework

Question 19

ego

Answer 19

• 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

Question 20

superego

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

oedipus complex

Answer 21

• 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

Question 22

female oedipal development

Answer 22

• 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

Question 23

male oedipal development

Answer 23

• 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&raquo_space; arouses castration anxiety
• that convinces him that sexual intercourse with his mother would be extremely dangerous

Question 24

penis envy

Answer 24

little girl’s wish to internalize her father’s penis and to receive a baby from him

Question 25

psychological birth

Answer 25

child becomes an individual separate from their primary caregiver which leads to a sense of identity

Question 26

normal autism

Answer 26

• 3 or 4 weeks
• primary narcissism: unaware of another person
• objectless stage: a time when infant naturally searches for the mother’s breast

Question 27

normal symbiosis

Answer 27

• 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

Question 28

separation-individualism

Answer 28

• until 30th to 36th month
• psychologically separated from their mothers
• develop feelings of personal identity

Question 29

Kohut’s view

Answer 29

• 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

Question 30

John Bowlby’s attachment theory

Answer 30

separation anxiety: sequence of reactions when separated from their primary caregivers

Question 31

Mary Ainsworth’s Strange Situation

Answer 31

critical behavior and how the infant reacts when the mother returns is the basis of the attachment style rating