Melanie Klein and object relation theories

Question 1

What is object relation theory?

Answer 1

experientially based perspective emphasizing the individual’s experience of being with others and with the analyst during analytic work

–> The term has been used to designate many ideas of varying coherence and specificity

Question 2

What are the shared assumptions of object relation theories?

Answer 2

1. severe pathology has pre-oedipal origins (i.e. first three years of life)
2. the pattern of relationships with objects becomes increasingly complex with development
3. the stages of this development represent a maturational sequence that exists across cultures, but may be distorted by pathological personal experiences
4. early patterns of object relations are repeated, and in some sense fixed throughout life
5. disturbances in these relations developmentally map onto pathology
6. patients’ reactions to their therapists provide a window for examining healthy and pathological aspects of early relationship patterns

Question 3

What are object relations theories’ propositions opposed to classical Freudian theory?

Answer 3

1. Stand against Freud’s assumption that evolution of psychic structure is an intra-psychic process independent of the child’s relationships
2. Freud: mind evolves in the wake of frustration of the child’s drives
   - -> implies only object relations that frustrate the child’s needs to play a part in the creation of mental structures

Question 4

What’s the stand point of object relation theories?

Answer 4

1. Greater heterogeneity of possible relationship patterns that are considered relevant for the development of mental structures
2. Assume that the child’s mind is shaped by all early experiences with the caregiver
3. M. Klein retains Freudian notions of instinct but no longer considers its frustration as sufficient for the creation of mental structure

Question 5

What are the general characteristics of Klein’s model?

Answer 5

1. Her work combines the structural model with an object relations model of development
2. She examined growth of the ego and the superego in terms of the early relationships between the child and the caregiver
3. Her work with children showed that the internal images of objects were much more cruel than the parents appeared to be -> assumption that internal figures were distorted by sadistic fantasies
4. Children from the beginning of life build up internal objects and the inner world – which differs from external world
5. Idea that mental structures arose out of a variety of internal objects whose character in unconscious phantasy changed as the child developed from infancy
6. Relational model: development of ego and the internal objects is related to personal relationships -> phantasies are modified by his actual experience of interaction with the environment
7. Acceptance of Freud’s idea of a death instinct -> Klein saw it as a real psychological phenomenon present from birth

Question 6

What are the two basic positions of the human psyche according to Klein?

Answer 6

The human psyche has two basic positions:
• The paranoid-schizoid and the depressive position

1. Arise out of developmental stages – the paranoid-schizoid position (birth until 3-4 months) precedes the depressive
2. The term ‘position’ implies a particular constellation of object relationships, external and internal, phantasies, anxieties and defenses to which the individual is likely to return throughout life
3. Maturity implies the predominant presence of the depressive position

Question 7

(Melanie Klein) The paranoid-schizoid position (Ps):

Answer 7

1. The baby’s early efforts to organize internal and external perceptions are dominated by splitting:
2. 1. Attribution of all goodness, love and pleasure to an ideal object
3. 2. Attribution of all pain, distress and badness to a persecutory object
      - ->Hungry infant cannot represent the breast as absent (as no object constancy); instead experiences uncomfortable sensation (hunger) which in phantasy becomes as if baby was attacked from within by a bad internal breast – absence of satisfaction experienced as persecution
      - ->All good feelings (affection, desire) are aimed at the idealized good object which the infant wishes to possess, take inside (introject) and experience as himself (identify with)
      - ->Negative affect (hatred, disgust) is projected onto the persecutory object, since the infant wants to get rid of everything felt to be bad and disruptive
4. Each external object has at least one good and one bad representation, but both are just parts, not the whole object (disintegrated)
5. The ego (the self) – present from the beginning – is split as well

Question 8

(Melanie Klein) The depressive position (D):

Answer 8

1. The infant perceives the mother as a whole object who accounts for both good and bad experiences
2. The infant realizes his own capacity to love and hate the parent
3. Discovery of ambivalence and of the potential loss of the attacked object, opens the child to the experience of guilt about his hostility to a loved object -> ‘depressive anxiety’ -> reparative feelings
4. Psychic pain associated with the integration is so great that it can lead to defenses characteristic of this position, e.g. obsessional reparation, total denial of damage
5. Ego is integrated as well

Question 9

(Melanie Klein) What is the concept of ‘projective identification’?

Answer 9

1. Classical theory:
2. 1. Projection: impulses and wishes are seen as part of the object rather than the self
3. 2. Identification: attributing to the self qualities perceived in the object
4. Projective identification: involves externalizing ‘segments of the ego’ and attempting to gain control over these unwanted possessions via often highly manipulative behavior toward the object > a more interactive concept

Question 10

(Melanie Klein) What is the assumption of an ‘aggressive drive’?

Answer 10

1. In child analysis, M. Klein found that children had extremely sadistic phantasies, about which they usually felt very guilty and anxious
2. Assumption that the baby’s self is from the beginning constantly threatened with destruction from within by an aggressive drive
3. Babies feel an unconscious fear of death from the beginning; this is the ‘primary anxiety’
4. The mother’s breast, her body and parental intercourse are the main targets for the projection in phantasy of the child’s destructive impulses
5. The death instinct is only partly projected onto the bad object; some of it is retained and continues to be felt, as threatening annihilation from within

Question 11

(Melanie Klein) What is the place of experience in Klein’s model?

Answer 11

1. Contradictory statements:
   –>Innateness of the earliest internal objects and their independence of actual
   experiences (Klein, 1952)
   vs.
   –>Parents have a corrective or mitigating influence which can modify the anxieties arising from the child’s constitutional tendencies (Klein, 1932, 1935, 1960)
   –>In favorable circumstances good experiences predominate over bad ones, and the idea of a good object is firmly established, as is the child’s belief in his capacity to love
2. Post-Kleinians integrated environmental accounts with her ideas
3. The actual state of the object while the child is in the depressive position is thought to be extremely important
   3.1. If mother appears to be damaged, the child’s depressive anxiety, guilt and despair are increased
   3.2. If she appears well and can empathize with her child about his aggressive feelings, his fear of them is decreased
   3.3. The child identifies with the representation of the (internalized) good object and this strengthens the ego and promotes growth

Question 12

(Melanie Klein) What is the Kleinian way of treatment?

Answer 12

1. In treatment, Kleinians prefer to work exclusively with interpretations, primarily transference interpretations aimed at the patient’s current anxieties
2. They work analytically with very severe disorders

Question 13

(Melanie Klein) What are the characteristics of Melanie Klein’s analysis of children?

Answer 13

1. Work with very young children (from age two)
2. Use of toys
3. Interpretations of the children’s play
4. Using those interpretations, M. Klein translated continuously the actions of the children in thoughts
5. She described the children their unconscious fantasies, which she detected in their play
6. These kinds of interpretations of symbols of play are the most important element of her child analysis

Question 14

What are the contents of dispute between Anna Freud and Melanie Klein?

Answer 14

1. Different theoretical ideas: new object relations theory vs. classical Freudian psychoanalysis (with a stronger focus on ego psychology)
2. How child analysis should be performed
3. 1. Anna Freud used more pedagogically oriented techniques emphasizing ego functions; worked mostly with children in latency (5-10 years)
4. 2. Melanie Klein interpretations of symbols in play of the child emphasizing their phantasies (using terms such as ‘good breast’, ‘bad breast’); work with young children

Question 15

What are the outlines of the kleinian model of psychopathology?

Answer 15

1. Psychological illness: predominance of the paranoid-schizoid (Ps) position
2. Health: implies stabilization of the depressive framework
3. Neurotic problems are seen mainly as consequences of unresolved depressive anxiety
4. 1. e.g., if reparative efforts are felt to fail, a need for reparation may persist as perfectionism
5. 2. depression arises because the experience of loss reminds the person of the damage they caused to the good object
6. 3. chronic depression arises when the person cannot escape the fear of injuring the loved object and therefore has to repress all aggressiveness -> turning of aggression upon the self as an attempt to protect the good object

Question 16

What are the models of borderline conditions according to Klein?

Answer 16

1. Klein’s ideas were vital to the understanding of borderline personality conditions
2. The Ps condition is the template for borderline personality functioning:
3. 1. In object relationships splitting predominates over repression; other people are either idealized or denigrated
4. 2. Since the depressive position is avoided and all badness is pushed into the object, no genuine sadness, mourning or guilt is felt
5. 3. Projective identification predominates; communication cannot be mutual, and the other person is manipulated, being forced to take on unacceptable aspects of the borderline individual’s personality

Question 17

(Melanie Klein) Short-Term Psychoanalytic Child Therapy (PaCT):

Answer 17

1. Therapeutic approach aims to connect observable behavior and symptoms with previously unconscious or preconscious conflicts of the child and the family, and enable them to be better understood
2. In the first five session, the therapist gathers material and information about three areas (see illustration) which are then included in the psychodynamic considerations of the currently active core conflict
   - -> Formulation of a focus which is communicated to parents and the child at suitable points in time