Object Relations Theory Flashcards
ORT differ from Freud in 3 ways:
- emphasis on interpersonal relationships
- stresses mother-infant relationship rather than father
- people are motivated primarily for human contact rather than for sexual pleasure
Father of object relations
Freud
Psychic representations of unconscious id instincts; unconscious images of good and bad
Phantasies
Infants introject and having a life of their own within the child’s fantasy world
Objects
Way of dealing with both internal and external objects; represent normal social growth and development
Positions
Keep good and bad breast separate; fear persecutory breast and keep ideal breast in protection again persecutors
Paranoid-schizoid position
When external objects viewed as a whole and that good and bad can exist in the same person; feel anxiety over losing loved object and guilt for wanting to destroy
Depressive position
Resolved when infants fantasize that they have made up for their previous transgressions against their mother and realize that their mother will not abandom them
Depressive position
Protect ego against anxiety aroused by their own destructive fantasies
Psychic defense mechanisms
Fantasy of taking into one’s own body the images that one has of an external object such as the mother’s breast
Introjection
Infants introject good objects to protect against anxiety and also bad objects to gain control of them
Introjection
The fantasy that one’s own feelings and impulses actually reside in another person; alleviate unbearable anxiety
Projection
Keeping apart incompatible impulses; bad me and good me; enable ppl to see both positive and negative aspects of themselves
Splitting
Infants split off unacceptable parts of themselves, project into another object and finally introject them in an altered form.
Projective identification
Person introjects external objects and organize them into a psychologically meaningful framework
Internalizations
Unorganized at birth but strong enough to feel anxiety , use defense mechanisms, form early object relations in both phantasy and reality; reaches maturity earlier than freud
Ego
Emerges much earlier than Freud and much harsher and cruel; grows along oedipus complex and emerges as a realistic guilt after resolved
Superego
Klein oedipus complex stems from:
Children’s fear that their parents will seek revenge against them for their fantasy of emptying the parents body
Develop positive relationship with father (or both) and fantasizes that father will fill her with babies
Feminine position
Primarily concerned with the psychological birth of the individual
Mahler’s view
Child becomes an individual separate from his or her primary caregiver which leads to a sense of identity
Psychological birth
Stage of psych birth: satisfy needs within the all-powerful protective orbit of their mother’s care; objectless stage
Normal autism
Stage of psych birth: infants behave as if they and their mother were an omnipotent, symbiotic unit
Normal symbiosis
Stage of psych birth: becoming psychologically separated from their mothers and achieving individuation
Separation-individuation
