Object Relations (contemporary)

Question 1

Overview of Object Relations Theory

Answer 1

(Fairbairn, 1941)

• Primary Motivation of the child is object seeking , not drive gratification
• Basic patterns of relatedness are established in the past and became the expected way of relating

Question 2

Object Relations: Pathology

Answer 2

(Kaiser, 1965)

-patient suffers from contact disturbances=inability to engage meaningfully with others in a sustaining or gratifying way

Question 3

Fairbairn: Definition of pathology

Answer 3

(Fairbairn, 1941)

• Libido is object seeking
• pathology is the degree to which perception of current reality is determined by internal drama
• pathology=old bad introjects(not conflicts)

Question 4

What are introjects?

Answer 4

Early objects are internalized and introjects are manifested by repetitions, relational patterns, and transference

Question 5

Fairbairn: Repression

Answer 5

(Fairbairn, 1941)

People repress relationships and relationship ties to parents which cannot be integrated

Question 6

OR curative factors

Answer 6

changed capacity for relatedness

Question 7

Fairbairn: View of development

Answer 7

(Fairbairn, 1941)

• child bonds to parents through whatever content parents provide
• If parents engage in pleasurable exchanges, the child is pleasure seeking with others
• if parents provide painful experiences, children seek pain as a form of connection

Question 8

Fairbairn: Curative Factor

Answer 8

(Fairbairn, 1941)

• the emotional connection with the therapist with therapist neutral supportiveness
• patient sees how old dramas are enacted through interpretations (insight is not enough)
• patient learns new way of relating

Question 9

Winnicott: view of pathology

Answer 9

(Winnicott, 1949)
-pathology comes from maternal deprivation–lack of “good enough mothering”(physical and emotional attunement)
-patient shapes the treatment to provide experiences missed in childhood
if the holding environment has too much stimulation it can be traumatizing, too little and the child develops a false self to appease the objects

Question 10

Winnicott: Curative Facor

Answer 10

(Winnitcott, 1949)

• the search for the true self apart from the false self; look at who you really are, not who you want to be
• the patient becomes comfortable in their own skin and authentic
• the holding environment provides patients with the opportunity to discover who they are

Question 11

Kohut: View of pathology

Answer 11

(Kohut, 1971)

• developmental failures
• children need caregivers to mirror empathy, affirm, validate, and provide idealizing
• failure in transmuting internalization

Question 12

Kohut: patient’s therapy gainz

Answer 12

(Kohut, 1971) BAAA
Boundaries
Agency
Authenticity
Affective tone (sense of wholeness of a person's inner experience)

Question 13

Transmuting internalization

Answer 13

the functions of the external self-object are slowly, gradually bit by bit transformed into internal capacities

child learns that they are not omnipotent

Question 14

Kohut: Curative Factor

Answer 14

(Kohut, 1971)

• transmitting internalizations: to slowly and appropriately experience frustrations
• therapist slowly fails to be an empathetic self-object
• encourages increased self-care
• helps patient to relinquish external idealization
• goal of an integrated self where they can depend on their own internal processes for self-esteem

Question 15

Kohut: Development of the self

Answer 15

(Kohut, 1971)

• we begin in a healthy infantile narcissism
• there are three poles of libidinal need: grandiose (feeling special and sense of well-being), idealized parental imago (ability to see strength and hope outside self to seek soothing and direction), and twinship (belonging and security)
• needs are met through self-objects. the mirroring self object confirms sense of greatness and esteem and the idealized self object has great power and provides calmness and security
• the transition from childish grandiosity to mature self occurs through transmuting internalization which forces the child to internalize self-objects