Editing Object relations theory (section)

==Kleinian object relations theory==

===Unconscious phantasy===
<!--'Unconscious phantasy' redirects here-->
Klein termed the psychological aspect of instinct '''unconscious phantasy'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> (deliberately spelled with 'ph' to distinguish it from the word '[[Fantasy (psychology)|fantasy]]'). Phantasy is a given of psychic life which moves outward towards the world. These image-potentials are given a priority with the drives and eventually allow the development of more complex states of mental life. Unconscious phantasy in the infant's emerging mental life is modified by the environment as the infant has contact with reality.<ref name="Segal 1981">{{cite book
  | last        = Segal
  | first       = Hanna
  | title       = The work of Hanna Segal: A Kleinian approach to clinical practice
  | publisher   = Jason Aronson
  | year        = 1981
  | location    = New York, NY
  | isbn        = 978-0-87668-422-1 | title-link = Hanna Segal
 }}</ref>

<blockquote>
From the moment the infant starts interacting with the outer world, he is engaged in testing his phantasies in a reality setting. I want to suggest that the origin of thought lies in this process of testing phantasy against reality; that is, that thought is not only contrasted with phantasy, but based on it and derived from it.<ref name="Segal 1981" />{{rp|45}}
</blockquote>

The role of unconscious phantasy is essential in the development of a capacity for thinking. In [[Wilfred Bion|Bion's]] terms, the phantasy image is a preconception that will not be a thought until experience combines with a realization in the world of experience. The preconception and realization combine to take form as a concept that can be thought.<ref>Bion, W. (1962) "A theory of thinking". In ''Second thoughts: Selected papers on psycho-analysis'' (pp. 111–119). London: Karnac. 1967</ref><ref>Bion, W. (1977). Two papers: The grid and caesura. Karnac: London.</ref><ref>Ogden, T. (1990). ''The matrix of the mind: Object relations and the psychoanalytic dialogue''. Lanham, MD: Aronson.</ref> The classic example of this is the infant's observed rooting for the nipple in the first hours of life. The instinctual rooting is the preconception. The provision of the nipple provides the realization in the world of experience, and through time, with repeated experience, the preconception and realization combined to create the concept. Mental capacity builds upon previous experience as the environment and infant interact.
<blockquote>
The first bodily experiences begin to build up the first memories, and external realities are progressively woven into the texture of phantasy. Before long, the child's phantasies are able to draw upon plastic images as well as sensations—visual, auditory, kinæsthetic, touch, taste, smell images, etc. And these plastic images and dramatic representations of phantasy are progressively elaborated along with articulated perceptions of the external world.<ref>Isaacs, S. (1948). "The Nature and Function of Phantasy". ''International Journal of Psycho-Analysis'', v. 29, pp. 73–98 . Retrieved December 17, 2007 from PEP Archive.</ref>
</blockquote>
With adequate care, the infant is able to tolerate increasing awareness of experience which is underlain by unconscious phantasy and leads to attainment of consecutive developmental achievements, "the positions" in Kleinian theory.

===Projective identification===
As a specific term, [[projective identification]] is introduced by Klein in "Notes on some schizoid mechanisms."<ref name="Klein 1946">{{Cite book
 | last= Klein
 | first= Mélanie
 | chapter= Notes on some schizoid mechanisms
 | year= 1946
 | title= Envy and gratitude and other works 1946-1963
 | publisher= Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis
 | publication-date= 1975
 | isbn= 978-0-02-918440-0
 }}</ref>
<blockquote>
[Projection] helps the ego to overcome anxiety by ridding it of danger and badness. Introjection of the good object is also used by the ego as a defense against anxiety. ... The processes of splitting off parts of the self and projecting them into objects are thus of vital importance for normal development as well as for abnormal object-relation. The effect of introjection on object relations is equally important. The introjection of the good object, first of all the mother's breast, is a precondition for normal development ... It comes to form a focal point in the ego and makes for cohesiveness of the ego. ... I suggest for these processes the term 'projective identification'.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|6–9}}
</blockquote>
Klein imagined this function as a defense which contributes to the normal development of the infant, including ego structure and the development of object relations. The [[introjection]] of the good breast provides a location where one can hide from persecution, an early step in developing a capacity to self-soothe.

[[Thomas Ogden|Ogden]] identifies four functions that projective identification may serve. As in the traditional Kleinian model, it serves as a defense. Projective identification serves as a mode of communication. It is a form of object relations, and "a pathway for psychological change."<ref name="Ogden 77">{{cite book |last=Ogden |first=Thomas H. |title=Projective Identification and Psychotherapeutic Technique |publisher=Jason Aronson |year=1977 |isbn=978-0-87668-446-7 |location=Lanham, MD}}</ref>{{rp|21}} As a form of object relationship, projective identification is a way of relating with others who are not seen as entirely separate from the individual. Instead, this relating takes place "between the stage of the subjective object and that of true object relatedness".<ref name="Ogden 77" />{{rp|23}}

===Paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions===
{{main|Paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions}}

The positions of Kleinian theory, underlain by unconscious phantasy, are stages in the normal development of ego and object relationships, each with its own characteristic defenses and organizational structure. The paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions occur in the pre-oedipal, oral phase of development.

In contrast to Fairbairn and later Guntrip,<ref>{{cite book|author=Guntrip, H.|date=1975|title=Schizoid phenomena, object relations and the self|location=Madison, CT|publisher=International Universities Press|page=21}}</ref> Klein believed that both good and bad objects are introjected by the infant, the internalization of good objects being essential to the development of healthy ego function.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|4}} Klein conceptualized the depressive position as "the most mature form of psychological organization", which continues to develop throughout the life span.<ref name="Ogden 1989">{{cite book
  | last = Ogden
  | first = Thomas H.
  | title = The primitive edge of experience
  | publisher = Jason Aronson
  | year = 1989
  | location = Northvale, NJ
  | isbn = 978-0-87668-982-0}}</ref>{{rp|11}}

The depressive position occurs during the second quarter of the first year.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|14}} Prior to that the infant is in the paranoid-schizoid position, which is characterized by persecutory anxieties and the mechanisms of splitting, projection, introjection, and omnipotence—which includes idealizing and denial—to defend against these anxieties.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|7}} Depressive and paranoid-schizoid modes of experience continue to intermingle throughout the first few years of childhood.

====Paranoid-schizoid position====
The paranoid-schizoid position is characterized by part object relationships. Part objects are a function of splitting, which takes place in phantasy. At this developmental stage, experience can only be perceived as all good or all bad. As part objects, it is the function that is identified by the experiencing self, rather than whole and autonomous others. The hungry infant desires the good breast who feeds it. Should that breast appear, it is the good breast. If the breast does not appear, the hungry and now frustrated infant, in its distress, has destructive phantasies dominated by oral aggression towards the bad, hallucinated breast.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|5}}

Klein notes that in splitting the object, the ego is also split.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|6}} The infant who phantasies destruction of the bad breast is not the same infant that takes in the good breast, at least not until obtaining the depressive position, at which point good and bad can be tolerated simultaneously in the same person and the capacity for remorse and reparation ensue.

The anxieties of the paranoid schizoid position are of a persecutory nature, fear of the ego's annihilation.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|33}} Splitting allows good to stay separate from bad. Projection is an attempt to eject the bad in order to control through omnipotent mastery. Splitting is never fully effective, according to Klein, as the ego tends towards integration.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|34}}

====Depressive position====
Klein saw the depressive position as an important developmental milestone that continues to mature throughout the life span. The splitting and part object relations that characterize the earlier phase are succeeded by the capacity to perceive that the other who frustrates is also the one who gratifies. Schizoid defenses are still in evidence, but feelings of guilt, grief, and the desire for reparation gain dominance in the developing mind.

In the depressive position, the infant is able to experience others as whole, which radically alters object relationships from the earlier phase.<ref name="Klein 1946" />{{rp|3}} "Before the depressive position, a good object is not in any way the same thing as a bad object. It is only in the depressive position that polar qualities can be seen as different aspects of the same object."<ref name="Grotstein 1981">{{cite book
  | last = Grotstein
  | first = James S.
  | title = Splitting and projective identification
  | publisher = Jason Aronson
  | year = 1981
  | location = New York, NY
  | isbn = 978-0-87668-348-4}}</ref>{{rp|37}} Increasing nearness of good and bad brings a corresponding integration of ego.

In a development which Grotstein terms the "primal split",<ref name="Grotstein 1981" />{{rp|39}} the infant becomes aware of separateness from the mother. This awareness allows guilt to arise in response to the infant's previous aggressive phantasies when bad was split from good. The mother's temporary absences allow for continuous restoration of her "as an image of representation" in the infant mind.<ref name="Grotstein 1981" />{{rp|39}} Symbolic thought may now arise, and can only emerge once access to the depressive position has been obtained. With the awareness of the primal split, a space is created in which the symbol, the symbolized, and the experiencing subject coexist. History, subjectivity, interiority, and empathy all become possible.<ref name="Ogden 1989" />{{rp|14}}

The anxieties characteristic of the depressive position shift from a fear of being destroyed to a fear of destroying others. In fact or phantasy, one now realizes the capacity to harm or drive away a person who one ambivalently loves. The defenses characteristic of the depressive position include the manic defenses, repression and reparation. The manic defenses are the same defenses evidenced in the paranoid-schizoid position, but now mobilized to protect the mind from depressive anxiety. As the depressive position brings about an increasing integration in the ego, earlier defenses change in character, becoming less intense and allowing for an increased awareness of psychic reality.<ref name="Klein 1952">{{Cite book
 | last=Klein
 | first=Mélanie
 | chapter=Some theoretical conclusions regarding the emotional life of the infant
 | year=1952
 | title=Envy and gratitude and other works 1946-1963
 | publisher=Hogarth Press and the Institute of Psycho-Analysis
 | publication-date=1975
 | isbn=978-0-02-918440-0
 }}</ref>{{rp|73}}

In working through depressive anxiety, projections are withdrawn, allowing the other more autonomy, reality, and a separate existence.<ref name="Segal 1981" />{{rp|16}} The infant, whose destructive phantasies were directed towards the bad mother who frustrated, now begins to realize that bad and good, frustrating and satiating, it is always the same mother. Unconscious guilt for destructive phantasies arises in response to the continuing love and attention provided by caretakers.
<blockquote>
[As] fears of losing the loved one become active, a very important step is made in the development. These feelings of guilt and distress now enter as a new element into the emotion of love. They become an inherent part of love, and influence it profoundly both in quality and quantity.<ref name="Klein 1964">{{Cite book
|last1= Klein
|first1= Mélanie
|last2= Riviere
|first2= Joan
|title= Love, Hate, and Reparation
|year=1964
|publisher= Norton
|location= New York, NY
|isbn= 978-0-393-00260-7
|chapter=Love, guilt, and reparation
}}</ref>{{rp|65}}
</blockquote>
From this developmental milestone comes a capacity for sympathy, responsibility to and concern for others, and an ability to identify with the subjective experience of people one cares about.<ref name="Klein 1964" />{{rp|65–66}} With the withdrawal of the destructive projections, repression of the aggressive impulses takes place.<ref name="Klein 1952" />{{rp|72–73}} The child allows caretakers a more separate existence, which facilitates increasing differentiation of inner and outer reality. Omnipotence is lessened, which corresponds to a decrease in guilt and the fear of loss.<ref name="Segal 1981" />{{rp|16}}

When all goes well, the developing child is able to comprehend that external others are autonomous people with their own needs and subjectivity.

Previously, extended absences of the object (the good breast, the mother) was experienced as persecutory, and, according to the theory of [[Object relations theory#Unconscious Phantasy|unconscious phantasy]], the persecuted infant phantisizes destruction of the bad object. The good object who then arrives is not the object which did not arrive. Likewise, the infant who destroyed the bad object is not the infant who loves the good object.

In phantasy, the good internal mother can be psychically destroyed by the aggressive impulses. It is crucial that the real parental figures are around to demonstrate the continuity of their love. In this way, the child perceives that what happens to good objects in phantasy does not happen to them in reality. Psychic reality is allowed to evolve as a place separate from the literalness of the physical world.

Through repeated experience with good enough parenting, the internal image that the child has of external others, that is the child's internal object, is modified by experience and the image transforms, merging experiences of good and bad which becomes more similar to the real object (e.g. the mother, who can be both good and bad). In Freudian terms, the [[Pleasure principle (psychology)|pleasure principle]] is modified by the [[reality principle]].

Melanie Klein saw this surfacing from the depressive position as a prerequisite for social life. Moreover, she viewed the establishment of an inside and an outside world as the start of interpersonal relationships.

Klein argued that people who never succeed in working through the depressive position in their childhood will, as a result, continue to struggle with this problem in adult life. For example: the cause that a person may maintain suffering from intense guilt feelings over the death of a loved one, may be found in the unworked- through depressive position. The guilt is there because of a lack of differentiation between phantasy and reality. It also functions as a [[defense mechanism]] to defend the self against unbearable feelings of sadness and sorrow, and the internal object of the loved one against the unbearable rage of the self, which, it is feared, could destroy the internal object forever.

====Further thinking regarding the positions====
[[Wilfred Bion]] articulates the dynamic nature of the positions, a point emphasised by [[Thomas Ogden]], and expanded by [[John Steiner (psychoanalyst)|John Steiner]] in terms of '"The equilibrium between the paranoid-schizoid and the depressive positions"'.<ref>John Steiner, in Robin Anderson ed., ''Clinical Lectures on Klein and Bion'' (London 1992) p. 46-58</ref> Ogden and [[James Grotstein]] have continued to explore early infantile states of mind, and incorporating the work of [[Donald Meltzer]], [[Esther Bick]] and others, postulate a position preceding the paranoid-schizoid. Grotstein, following Bion, also hypothesizes a transcendent position which emerges following attainment of the depressive position. This aspect of both Ogden and Grotstein's work remains controversial for many within classical object relations theory.

===Death drive===
[[Sigmund Freud]] developed the concept [[object relation]] to describe or emphasize that bodily [[drive theory|drive]]s satisfy their need through a medium, an object, on a specific focus. The central thesis in [[Melanie Klein]]'s object relations theory was that objects play a decisive role in the development of a subject and can be either part-objects or whole-objects, i.e. a single organ (a mother's breast) or a whole person (a mother). Consequently, both a mother or just the mother's breast can be the focus of satisfaction for a drive. Furthermore, according to traditional psychoanalysis, there are at least two types of drives, the [[libido]] (mythical counterpart: [[Eros (mythology)|Eros]]), and the [[death]] drive, [[mortido]] (mythical counterpart: [[Thanatos]]). Thus, the objects can be receivers of both [[love]] and [[hate]], the affective effects of the [[libido]] and the death drive.