5 Melanie Klein-Object Relations Theory

Melanie Klein-Object Relations Theory
I. Overview of Object Relations Theory

Many personality theorists have accepted some of Freud's basic assumptions while rejecting
others. One approach to extending psychoanalytic theory has been the object relations theories of
Melanie Klein and others. Unlike Jung and Adler, who came to reject Freud's ideas, Klein tried to
validate Freud's theories. In essence,
Klein extended Freud's developmental stages downward to the first 4 to 6 months after birth.
II. Biography of Melanie Klein

Melanie Klein was born in Vienna in 1892, the youngest of four children. She had neither a Ph.D.
nor an M.D. degree but became an analyst by being psychoanalyzed. As an analyst, she
specialized in working with young children. In 1927, she moved
to London where she practiced until her death in 1960.
III. Introduction to Object Relations Theory

Object relations theory differs from Freudian theory in at least three ways: (1) it places more
emphasis on interpersonal relationships, (2) it stresses the infant's relationship with the mother
rather than the father, and (3) it suggests that people are motivated primarily for human contact
rather than for sexual pleasure. The
term object in object relations theory refers to any person or part of a person that infants introject,
or take into their psychic structure and then later project onto other people.
IV. Psychic Life of the Infant

Klein believed that infants begin life with an inherited predisposition to reduce the anxiety that they
experience as a consequence of the clash between the life instinct and the death instinct.
A. Fantasies
Klein assumed that very young infants possess an active, unconscious fantasy life. Their most
basic fantasies are images of the "good" breast and the "bad" breast.
B. Objects
Klein agreed with Freud that drives have an object, but she was more likely to emphasize the
child's relationship with these objects (parents' face, hands,
breast, penis, etc.), which she saw as having a life of their own within the
child's fantasy world.
V. Positions
In their attempts to reduce the conflict produced by good and bad images, infants organize their
experience into positions, or ways of dealing with both internal and external objects.
A. Paranoid-Schizoid Position
The struggles that infants experience with the good breast and the bad breast lead to two separate
and opposing feelings: a desire to harbor the breast and a desire to bite or destroy it. To tolerate
these two feelings, the ego splits itself by retaining parts of its life and death instincts while
projecting other parts onto the breast. It then has a relationship with the ideal breast and the
persecutory breast. To control this situation, infants adopt the paranoid-schizoid position, which is a
tendency to see the world as having both destructive and omnipotent qualities.
B. Depressive Position
By depressive position, Klein meant the anxiety that infants experience around 6 months of age
over losing their mother and yet, at the same time, wanting to destroy her. The depressive position
is resolved when infants fantasize that they have made up for their previous transgressions against
their mother and also realize that their mother will not abandon them.
VI. Psychic Defense Mechanisms

According to Klein, children adopt various psychic defense mechanisms to protect their ego against
anxiety aroused by their own destructive fantasies.
A. Introjection
Klein defined introjection as the fantasy of taking into one's own body the images that one has of
an external object, especially the mother's breast. Infants usually introject good objects as a
protection against anxiety, but they also introject bad objects in order to gain control of them.
B. Projection
The fantasy that one's own feelings and impulses reside within another person
is called projection. Children project both good and bad images, especially onto
their parents.
C. Splitting
Infants tolerate good and bad aspects of themselves and of external objects by splitting, or
mentally keeping apart, incompatible images. Splitting can be beneficial to both children and
adults, because it allows them to like themselves while still recognizing some unlikable qualities.
D. Projective Identification
Projective identification is the psychic defense mechanism whereby infants split off unacceptable
parts of themselves, project them onto another object, and finally introject them in an altered form.
VII. Internalizations
After introjecting external objects, infants organize them into a psychologically meaningful
framework, a process that Klein called internalization.
A. Ego
Internalizations are aided by the early ego's ability to feel anxiety, to use defense mechanisms, and
to form object relations in both fantasy and reality. However, a unified ego emerges only after first
splitting itself into two parts: those that deal with the life instinct and those that relate to the death
instinct.
B. Superego
Klein believed that the superego emerged much earlier than Freud had held. To her, the superego
preceded rather than followed the Oedipus complex. Klein also saw the superego as being quite
harsh and cruel.
C. Oedipus Complex
Klein believed that the Oedipus complex begins during the first few months of life, then reaches its
zenith during the genital stage, at about 3 or 4 years of age, or the same time that Freud had
suggested it began. Klein also held that much of the Oedipus complex is based on children's fear
that their parents will seek revenge against them for their fantasy of emptying the parent's body.
For healthy development during the Oedipal years, children should retain positive feelings for each
parent. According to Klein, the little boy adopts a "feminine" position very early in life and has no
fear of being castrated as punishment for his sexual feelings for his mother. Later, he projects his
destructive drive onto his father, whom he fears will bite or castrate him. The male Oedipus
complex is resolved when the boy establishes good relations with both parents. The little girl also
adopts a "feminine" position toward both parents quite early in life. She has a positive feeling for
both her mother's breast and her father's penis, which she believes will feed her with babies.
Sometimes the girl develops hostility toward her mother, whom she fears will retaliate against her
and rob her of her babies, but in most cases, the female Oedipus complex is resolved without any
jealousy toward the mother.
VIII. Later Views on Object Relations

A number of other theorists have expanded and altered Klein's theory of object relations. Notable
among them are Margaret Mahler, Otto Kernberg, Heinz Kohut, and John Bowlby.
A. Margaret Mahler's View

Mahler, a native of Hungary who practiced psychoanalysis in both Vienna and New York,
developed her theory of object relations from careful observations of infants as they bonded with
their mothers during their first 3 years of life. In their progress toward achieving a sense of identity,
children pass through a series of three major developmental stages. First is normal autism, which
covers the first 3 to 4 weeks of life, a time when infants satisfy their needs within the all-powerful
protective orbit of their mother's care. Second is normal symbiosis, when infants behave as if they
and their mother were an omnipotent, symbiotic unit. Third is separation-individuation, from about 4
months until about 3 years, a time when children are becoming psychologically separated from
their mothers and achieving individuation, or a sense of personal identity.
B. Heinz Kohut's View
Kohut was a native of Vienna who spent most of his professional life in the United States. More
than any of the other object relations theorists, Kohut emphasized the development of the self. In
caring for their physical and psychological needs, adults treat infants as if they had a sense of self.
The parents' behaviors and attitudes eventually help children form a sense of self that gives unity
and consistency to
their experiences.
C. Otto Kernberg's View

Kernberg, a native of Vienna who has spent most of his professional career in the United States,
believes that the key to understanding personality is the mother-child relationship. Children who
experience a healthy relationship with their mother develop an integrated ego, a punitive superego,
a stable self-concept, and satisfying interpersonal relations. In contrast, children who have poor
relations with their mother will have difficulty integrating their ego and may suffer from some form of
psychopathology during adulthood.
D. John Bowlby's Attachment Theory
Bowlby, a native of England, received training in child psychiatry from Melanie Klein. By studying
human and other primate infants, Bowlby observed three stages of separation anxiety: (1) protest,
(2) apathy and despair, and (3) emotional detachment from people, including the primary caregiver.
Children who reach the third stage lack warmth and emotion in their later relationships.
IX. Psychotherapy
The goal of Kleinian therapy was to reduce depressive anxieties and persecutory fears and to
lessen the harshness of internalized objects. To do this, Klein encouraged patients to re-
experience early fantasies and pointed out the differences between conscious and unconscious
wishes.
X. Related Research
Some research on attachment theory has found that children with secure attachment have both
better attention and better memory than do children with insecure attachment. Other research
suggests that securely attached young children grow up to become adolescents who feel
comfortable in friendship groups that allow new members to easily become part of those groups.
Still other studies have shown that 8- and 9-year-old children who were securely attached during
infancy produced family drawings that reflect that security.
XI. Critique of Object Relations Theory

Object relations theory shares with Freudian theory an inability to be either falsified or verified
through empirical research. Nevertheless, some clinicians regard the theory as being a useful
guide to action and as possessing substantial internal consistency. However, the theory must be
rated low on parsimony and also low on
its ability to organize knowledge and to generate research.
XII. Concept of Humanity

Object relations theorists see personality as being a product of the early
mother-child relationship, and thus they stress determinism over free choice.
The powerful influence of early childhood also gives these theories a low rating
on uniqueness, a very high rating on social influences, and high ratings on causality and
unconscious forces. Klein and other object relations theorists rate average
on optimism versus pessimism.

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Melanie Klein-Object Relations Theory

I. Overview of Object Relations Theory

II. Biography of Melanie Klein

III. Introduction to Object Relations Theory

IV. Psychic Life of the Infant

VI. Psychic Defense Mechanisms

VIII. Later Views on Object Relations

A. Margaret Mahler's View

C. Otto Kernberg's View

XI. Critique of Object Relations Theory

XII. Concept of Humanity

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