Theories of Personality
Klein: Object
Relations
Theory
Outline
• Overview of Object Relations Theory
• Biography of Klein
• Introduction to Object Relations Theory
• Psychic Life of the Infant
• Positions
• Psychic Defense Mechanisms
• Internalizations
Outline
• Later Views on Object Relations
• Psychotherapy
• Related Research
• Critique of Object Relations Theory
• Concept of Humanity
Overview of Object Relations Theory
• Built on Observations of Young Children
• Infant’s Drives are Driven by Objects
– Breast is prototype for later relations
• Role of Fantasy in Interpersonal
Relationships
Biography of Klein
• Born in Vienna in 1882
• Youngest of Four Children
• Complex Family Relationships
• Met Sandor Ferenczi in 1909
• Read On Dreams in 1914
• Became an analyst by being psychoanalyzed and through a
study of psychoanalysis
• Was First in Freud’s Circle to Psychoanalyze Children
Directly
• Her The Psycho-Analysis of Children was published in
1932
• Died in England in 1960
Introduction to Object Relations Theory
• Related to Freud’s Instinct Theory but
Differs in Three Important Ways:
– Emphasizes consistent patterns of interpersonal
relationships
– Stresses intimacy and nurturing (maternal)
– Relatedness as prime motive of human
behavior
Psychic Life of the Infant
• Fantasies
– Infants possess an active fantasy life
– Most basic fantasies are of what is “good” and
“bad” (e.g., good and bad breast)
• Objects
– Drives have an object
– Objects are introjected or taken into child’s
fantasy world and have a life of their own
Positions
• Paranoid-Schizoid Position
– Organizing experiences in way that includes
both feelings of persecution and splitting of
internal and external objects into the good and
the bad
• Depressive Position
– Anxiety over losing a loved object
– Sense of guilt for wanting to destroy loved
object
Psychic Defense Mechanisms
• Introjection
• Projection
• Splitting
• Projective Identification
Internalizations
• Aspects of the External World That Are
Organized Internally into a
Psychologically Meaningful
Framework
– Ego
– Superego
– Oedipus Complex
• Male Oedipal Complex
• Female Oedipal Complex
Later Views of Object Relations
• Margaret Mahler’s View
– Observed infant/mother interaction
during the first three years of
infants’ lives
– Examined change from security to
autonomy
– Children pass through a series of
three major developmental stages:
1. Normal autism (birth through 3-4 weeks)
2. Normal symbiosis (4th week-5th month)
3. Separation-individuation (5th-36th month)
Later Views of Object Relations
• Heinz Kohut’s View
– Emphasized the process of
development of the self
– In caring for infants’ physical and
psychological needs, adults or self-
objects treat them as if they had a
sense of self
– Self is the “center of the individual’s
psychological universe”
– Early self is characterized by two
narcissistic needs:
• To exhibit the grandiose self
• To acquire an idealized image of parents
Later Views of Object Relations
• John Bowlby’s View
– Tried to Integrate with Evolutionary
Theory
– Childhood was the Starting Point
– By studying human and other primate
infants, he observed three stages of
separation anxiety:
• Protest, Despair, & Detachment
– Two fundamental assumptions
• Caregiver must create a secure base of
child
• Bonding relationship becomes
internalized and acts as model for future
relationships
Later Views of Object Relations
• Mary Ainsworth was influenced by
Bowlby
– Developed Strange Situation
technique for measuring attachment
style
– Found three basic styles:
• Secure, Anxious-resistant, & Anxious-
avoidant
Psychotherapy
• Klein Thought all Children Should be
Psychoanalyzed
• Substituted Play Therapy for Dream Work
• Goal of Kleinian Psychotherapy:
– To reduce depressive anxieties and persecutory
fears, and to lessen the harshness of
internalized objects
Related Research
• Object Relations and Eating Disorders
– Huprich et al. (2004)
• Disturbed object relations associated with eating disorders
• Attachment Theory and Adult Relationships
– Hazan & Shaver (1987)
• Those with secure attachments experience more trust, closeness, and
positive emotions in relationships
– Rholes et al. (2007)
• Avoidant individuals seek less information about their romantic
partners while anxious individuals seek more
– Davidovitz et al. (2007)
• Attachment styles and information seeking in leadership: Military
officers and their soldiers: Lower well-being in units with avoidant
officers; lower instrumental functioning, but higher socioemotional
functioning, in units with anxious officers
Critique of Object Relations Theory
• Attachment Theory
– High on Practicality, Internal
Consistency, and Falsifiability
– Moderate on Generating Research
– Low on Parsimony (Particularly Kleinian
Theory) and Organizing Knowledge
Concept of Humanity
• Determinism over Free Choice
• Equal Emphasis on Optimism and
Pessimism
• Causality over Teleology
• Unconscious over Conscious
• Social Determinants over Biology
• Similarity over Uniqueness