Melanie Kline - Object Relations theory Flashcards
term object-relations
“ extended Freudian psychoanalysis with their emphasis on early relations to parents (objects) that influence later interpersonal relationships.
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Talks about relationship with daughter, her trauma. For Textbook, this is important to understand how she focuses the theory ,theres a lot of feeling on conflict , emotional conflict
begings on the assumption of freud and then speculate on how infants real and fantasized early reelations with the mothers or breast
Object relations theories show at least three key differences from Freud’s theory
1) Less emphasis on biologically based drives and more importance placed on consistent patterns of interpersonal relationships
– how people develop consistent patterns in early development . Does not mean people cant change but the patterns are based on our history
2) Less paternalistic, tends to focus on the role of the mother and “maternal” characteristics like intimacy and nurturing
were very prescriptive on how we should be as parents and that became an issue at the time. , focused so much on mothers that when theres an issues we would blame on the nurturing role of the mother
3) Object relations theories generally propose human contact and relatedness as the prime motive of human behaviour as opposed to sexual pleasure
Psychic Life of the Infant for Melanie Kline
Kline’s theory of personality emphasizes the importance of the first 4 to 6 months .. we all have (forces of the life, power of the death instinct)
Says that early instincts understood as phylogenetic endowment
concept of Positions
ways of dealing with internal and external objects - dealing with good or bad feelings that we organize our experiences into.
What are the 2 basic positions
Paranoid-schizoid position
Depressive position:
Paranoid-schizoid position
Organizing experiences in a way that includes both feelings of persecution and splitting of internal and external objects into the good and the bad
still figure out how to deal with feeling of good and bad, sometimes it does and sometimes it does not meet our needs. They don’t work together aka splitting off. This becomes a defense mechanism (splitting up).
This idea is influencial on how we think about with clients dealing with borderline personality disorder (thinking in a black and white ways)
Depressive position:
Includes both anxiety over losing a loved object and a sense of guilt for wanting to destroy the loved object.
Eventually we move through paranoid schizo position, realize that parents can do both Good and Bad and this leads us to depressive position
When we have those feelings, we feel a sense of guilt from wanting to destroy that object. Feeling that love and loss, feeling of destruction and guilt. As they become 5 or 6 , they begin to see objects as a whole ie breast to a mother. They also realize that mom might be loss at some point. This idea, leads to feelings of empathy (understand that parents are like us, they are separate but similar to us
defense mechanisms accordng to kline
Introjection
projection
Splitting
Projective identification
Introjection according to kline
phantasizing taking external objects such as the mother’s breast into their own body
Most often infants try to introject good objects, but they can introject bad objects, which can become persecutors terrifying the infant
eg. a kid fantasize that the mother is constantly present inside of them but really shes not
Projection according to kline
similar to Freudians idea, projection of own feelings onto other people. – destructive impulses are linked to this
Other people become the object or target for the feelings we have and that are unconscious. Leaves you to treat others as bad – distancing yourself from them
eg. son will want to castrate father but will turning the wish around thinking that father wants to castrate him
Splitting: : according to kline
separate the good and the bad.
If not extreme, splitting can be useful but it can become too rigid. — it can lead to pathological repression , The bad instincts are repressed.
Projective identification: according to kline
infants split off unacceptable parts of themselves, project them onto another object, and then introject them in a distorted form
Internalization according to Kline
introjection of external world and then organize them into a frame work
3 internalizations are ego, superego and oedipus complex
ego according to Kline
Mostly unorganized at birth, but present at an earlier stage unlike freud
Begins to evolve, images of good or bad becomes focal point for ego.
Ego becomes less split and more integrated. — We don’t see in partial good or bad ways
superego according to kline
superego: emerges early for kline
it is not linked to eodipus complexe like freud
(more harsh and cruel) Produces feelings of terror in the child in their phantasies that are greatly out of proportion to realistic danger
Who are the people Kline influences
Margaret Mahler
John Bowlby
Kohut
Ainsworth
Margaret mahler’s view
She developed object relations theory from observations of babies and their bond with mother
it focused on change from security to autonomy (psychological birth of an infant)
What are the 3 major developmental stages according to Mahler
Normal autism
Normal Symbiosis
Separation individuation
Normal autism
Normal autism: from birth until age three or four weeks - focused on themselves
stages where all the needs are satisfied automatically without dealing with external world
Normal symbiosis
from the fourth week to the fifth month – – seen as a dual, unity,.
Not distinct yet. (mother is preobject) and necessary for the child
Separation individuation
from the fifth to the 36th month. –
children become psychologically separate from their mothers,
achieve a sense of individuation and begin to develop feelings of personal identity
At this point they must face their vulnerability to external threats.
This is Differentiated into four overlapping substages
what are the 4 subcategories of separation individuation
differentiation - infant smiles to mom , bodily break
practicing - here child learns to crawl and walk. they start to develop and autonomous
rapprochement - they can walk but they still feel the strong bond with mom and become anxious when shes absent
separation-individuation aka libidinal object constancy : constant inner representation of mom so they tolerate when theyre not around her
Purpose of John Bowlby and relations to Kline
he was taught by kline
he was not satisfied with the object relations theory so he tried to incorporate concepts of ethology and evolutions
he established the attachment theory
What is attachment theory
he believes that all animals and humans go through sequences of reactions when separated from a caregiver
