question

who discovered a new instinct?

answer

Melanie Klein

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What did Object Relation Theory show in devlopment

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very different, begin shift from sexuality to relationship

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How was Melanie's relationship with her parents

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siblings were closer to them, dad ignores her

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Melanie was the only child that was not what?

answer

breastfed

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What were the original 2 instincts

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Freud- eros and thanatos

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what effects the way we look for answers

answer

life experiences

question

what culture was Melanie Klein a part of

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Jewish culture, tight knit community

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who in her family does Melanie Klein lose

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father, sister, and brother Emanuel

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why was Emanuel important?

answer

he liked her writing, and she gets attached to him. becomes more creative because of him. when he dies, she marries his best friend

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How was she influenced by Freud

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was so impressed by Interpretations of Dreams, so she wanted to be analysed

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how did Melanie Klein learn about children

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psychoanalyzed her own son

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what are phantasies

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children at a very young age experience these; unconscious, have to do with relationships (especially with mother, introjection

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what is introjection

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image representation of mom that got inside unconscious, core self is built upon mom

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what is core self built upon

answer

mom

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What do children internalize about their mothers

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positive and negative feelings!!

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who was Melanie Klein analyzed by?

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Karl Abrams

question

who was the first woman to challenge Freuds concept of female psychology

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Hug-Hellmuth

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what did Hug-Hellmuth emphasize

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only children over the age of 6 should be analyzed

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what age was the phantasy worls

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age 3-4; can tap into and treat

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what did Melanie Klein discover to analyze children

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play therapy

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what did freud and ana attack Melanies techniques about

answer

that you cant do psychoanalysis without positive transferance

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when did the freuds believe that you can have transference

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age of 7 -8 +

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Who did melanie really like to use play therapy with

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those who were aggressive or could not tolerate frustration

question

what is the case of peter

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he had temper tantrums and couldn't sleep; he played with horses oddly; figured out he knew his mom was pregnant and was going to be replaced

question

what is most important relationship

answer

mother and child

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what is the first thing we relate in life

answer

mom, moms breast

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what do we need

answer

consistent relationships

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how did Melanie Klein modify freuds theory

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we reduce tension through patterns of consistent relationships; breast, not penis; relationship vs pleasure and primal instinct

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what is the new instincts

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relationships - more powerful

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what does object relations theory emphasiz

answer

mother-child relationship and the internalization or introjection of mother

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when does the process of object relating begin

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very early in life, perhaps as early as the first few months of life

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how do you regulate inside

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regulate outside; mom - has a rhythm; why we move slower to help babies fall asleep; metromone is inside of you

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who is the mother

answer

whoever mothered you; external regulator

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how does the internal regulator affect borderline disorder

answer

dont have one

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what are phantasies

answer

can serve as a mechanism of tension reduction; come to this world with a form of active imagination called; relationships

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what do early phantasies have to deal with

answer

the good and bad breast.

question

what may cause a great deal of internal tension

answer

the introjected good and bad objects

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what are Melanies views on childs concept of self

answer

believe there is none

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what are fantasies

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active; imagine what florida is like

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what does breast symbolize

answer

nurturing, support, comfort

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Early Life

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- Born Melanie Reizes in Austria, 1882. - Youngest of four children. - Polish Hungarian Jewish. - Father's medical career affected by anti-Semitism. - Klein's mother Libussa let her know she wasn't planned. - Deeply jealous of her sister Emilie. - Mother adored her brother Emmanuel. - Sister Sidonie died when she was eight: first of mant bereavments for Klein. - Family described as neurotic and enmeshed. - Idealised her mother and adored brother who was a father figure to her. - Emmanuel died in 1902 - another bereavement for Klein.

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Adult Life

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- Married Arthur Klein. - Unsuccessful marriage, spending most of it apart due to Arthur's travelling. - Klein throws herself into motherhood but suffers deep depression. - Libussa encourages her to take long breaks from her children, sometimes even when she didn't want to. - Lost and frightenened, unable to manage emotionally without her mother. - Mother died and she entered Psychoanalysis becoming greatly attached to her psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi. - Ferenczi believed that one became neurotic not through instinctual conflicts (Freud) but through a lack of love.

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Klein Becoming Analyst

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- Encouraged by Ferenczi to study in under-developed field - the psychoanalysis of children. - Klein decided to use her own children by analysing them and uses them disguised in case studies. - Overcomes her depression as a result of her training and her analysis. - Decides she wants her troubled children to benefit from analysis.

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Klein as an analyst

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- Becomes highly intuitive analyst and practices in Berlin. - Upsets analytical community. - Not medically trained, is a woman, and now divorced. - Is brash and tactless regarding her suppositions formulated on analysing her children and her intuitive understanding and interpretations. - Klein invited to Britain shortly after Freud.

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Key Concepts of Klein

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- Object Relations. - Splitting. - Paranoid Schizoid Position. - Gratitude. - Envy and jealousy. - Projective identification. - Transference and countertransference. - Ambivalence. - Depressive Position.

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Splitting and Paranoid Schizoid Position

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Constellation of anxieties, defences and internal and external object relations that Klein considered to be characteristic of earliest months of an infant's life and to continue to a greater or lesser extent into childhood and adulthood.

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Splitting and Paranoid Schizoid Position

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Contemporary understanding is that Paranoid-Schizoid mental states play an important part throughout life. Chief characteristic of the Paranoid-schizoid position is the splitting of both self and object into good and bad, with at first little or no integration between them.

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Splitting and Paranoid Schizoid Position

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Infants suffer a great deal of anxiety and this is caused by the death instinct within, by the trauma experienced at birth and by experiences of hunger and frustration.

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Splitting

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Infant does this to both ego and objects and projects out separately his loving and hating feelings (Life and death instincts) into separate parts of mother (or breast), with result being mother is divided into a 'bad' breast (mother that is felt to be frustrating, persecutory and is hated) and a 'good' breast (mother that is loved and felt to be loving and gratifying).

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Splitting

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Both the 'good' and 'bad' objects then introjected and a cycle of re-projection and re-introjection ensues. Omnipotence and idealisation are important aspects of this activity; bad experiences omnipotently denied whenever possible and good experiences are idealised and exaggerated as a protection against the fear of the persecuting breast.

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Splitting

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'Binary [this word]" is essential for healthy development as it enables the infant to take in and hold onto sufficient good experience to provide a central core around which to begin to integrate the contrasting aspects of the self.

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Splitting

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Good internal object is a prerequisite for the later working through of the 'depressive position'.

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Splitting

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A different form of this, 'fragmentation', in which the object and/or the self are split into many and smaller pieces is also a feature of the paranoid-schizoid position.

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Splitting

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Persistent or enduring use of fragmentation and dispersal of the self weakens the fragile unintegrated ego and causes severe disturbance.

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Splitting

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If development proceeds normally, extreme paranoid anxieties and schizoid defences are largely given up during the early infantile paranoid-schizoid position and during the working through of the depressive position.

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Paranoid Schizoid Position

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This can be thought of as the phase of development preceding the depressive position as a defence against it and also a regression from it.

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Severe Fragmentation

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- Psychosis. - Personality disorders. - Schizophrenia. - Bi-Polar. - Narcissism.

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Envy

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This is a highly destructive impulse. Earliest forms is this feeling towards the good breast that desire to destroy the object because it is outside the self and a symbol of post-natal experience that has led to separation and deprivation.

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Envy

answer

It becomes impossible to benefit from the good because it is treated as bad. Klein relates psychotic confusion to the insidious effects of this.

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Rosenfeld

answer

Developed the idea of 'forcefulness' - projective identification.

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Psychotic

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The person who is deemed as this remains identified with bad aspects of self. Here the patient is habitually identifying with badness and is unable to achieve that developmental stage of splitting and projecting the badness out and retaining the good object. Psychotics in therapy are unable to own projections and so there is a profound confusion between the self and others.

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Forcefulness

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The therapist experiences this, and there can he intense counter-transference and projective identification.

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Kohut (1970's)

answer

- Offered a different perspective. - Believed that the narcissistic fragmented client would not respond well to interpretations. - Interpretations would lead to narcissistic injury - client would feel offended. - Believed empathy to be overriding factor in developing therapeutic relationship. - Interpretations to be used only after a long period of time.

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Treatment - Total Situations (Betty Joseph)

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- Spitting is acknowledged. - Interpretations focus on the split way of experiencing others. - Idealisation, denigration of others discussed. - Defences which result from splitting/PSP discussed in relation to their life experiences. - Working relationally using intersubjectivity and transference/countertransference interpretations. - Client moves from the PSP to depressive position. - Clients can be depressed/suicidal during this stage. - Attachment is the primary corrective experience - this can take months or years to build. - Relationships in the outside world become more integrated - client able to modulate their emotions and experience others as having good and bad within them. - Behaviour change is the final stage of treatment.

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Relational Aspects

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Creating 'positive' transference with a client initially (projecting positive aspects of early relationships onto the therapist) can work towards the development of a therapeutic alliance - creates trust.

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Relational Aspects

answer

Our clients have many dimensions - if we can be open to exploring all of them the relationship will reach a deeper level.

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Not observing the total situation

answer

Kierkegaard - sit with uncertainty and learn from it. Communicating whole conflict. By just making interpretations we aren't using ourselves as part of the process. Dreams - the unconscious insight.

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Critique of total situations

answer

Uninitiated into therapy - language barriers. Thoughts -> feelings. Experience counter-transference before interpreting it. When is a client ready to look at total situation? Getting it wrong. Do we always need to name it, or is awareness enough? Responsibility of therapist - 'our fault'.

question

Splitting/Paranoid Schizoid Position/Depressive Position

answer

- Anxiety. - Anger. - Love. - Idealisation. - Denigration. - Manic and neurotic defence. - Difficulty in sustaining relationships. - Feelings of ambivalence. - Depressed position can result in integration of fragmented parts of self.

question

The War in Psychoanalysis

answer

- The Psycho-analytical world divided by Klein's theory. - Blood is spilled. - Klein's daughter joins the opposition. - Views formed on intuition and instinct aggressively argued against by others including Winnicott and Bowlby. - Results in permanent divide between psychoanalytic schools. - Kleinian approach seen as highly interpretive and challenging.

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The Kleinian Approach

answer

This is an excellent approach to use with difficult-to-shift clients who have undergone different therapies in the past with no improvement.

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Overview of Object Relations Theory

answer

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. She insisted that infants drives (hunger, sex etc) were directed to an object - a breast, a penis, a vagina and so on... The child's relation to the breast is fundamental and serves as a prototype for later relations to whole objects such as the mother and father. The early tendency of infants to relate to partial objects gives their experiences an unrealistic or fantasy-like quality that affects all later interpersonal relations. Kleins ideas thus tend to shift from focus on psychoanalytic theory stages of development to the role of early fantasy in the formation of interpersonal relationship.

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Biography of Melanie Klein

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Melanie Klein was born in Vienna in 1892, the youngest of four children. She had neither a PhD nor an MD 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. Klein had a very un-nurturing relationship with her daughter, despite the emphasis of her theory on the loving relationship between parent and child.

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Introduction to Object Relations Theory

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Object relations theory differs from Freudian theory in three important ways: (1) it places more emphasis on *interpersonal relationships* and less on biological drives. (2) it stresses the *intimacy and nurturing* part of an infant's relationship with the *mother* rather than the Freudian paternalistic emphasis on the control of the father. and (3) Generally sees *human contact* and relatedness - not sexual pleasure - as the *prime motive to human behaviour.* 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.

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Psychic Life of the Infant:

answer

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.

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Kleins Assumptions regarding psychic life of an infant: Fantasies

answer

Klein assumed that very young infants possess an active, unconscious fantasy life. Unconscious images associated with good and bad. ex. A full stomach is good, empty is bad. Their most basic fantasies are images of the "good" breast and the "bad" breast. Infants to fall sleep while sucking on their fingers are fantasizing about having their mothers good breast inside themselves. Infants who are hungry and cry and kick are fantasising that they are destroying the bad breast. As the infant matures, unconscious phantasies connected with the breast continue to have an impact of psychic life, but newer ones emerge as well. One of these fantasies involves the Oedipus complex or the child's wish to destroy one parent and sexually possess the other. Because this fantasised are unconscious, they can be contradictory ex. A little boy can fantasise of both beating his mother and having babies with her. - this springs from the boys experience with his mother and from the universal predisposition to destroy the bad breast and incorporate the good one.

question

Kleins Assumptions regarding psychic life of an infant: Objects

answer

Klein agreed with Freud that drives have an object, but she was more likely to emphasize the child's relationship. both in fantasy and in reality, 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. The earliest object relations are with the mothers breast, but soon after interest develops in the face and hands which also attend tot his need to gratify them. In their active fantasy, infants introject or take into their physical structure, these external onjects. these fantasies are concrete and physical. ex. children who introject their mother believe their mother in physically inside their body. These objects have a power of their own, and assumed that the father or mother's conscious is carried within the child.

question

Positions

answer

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. Positions alternate back and forth; they are not periods of time that pass. They are meant to represent normal social growth and development. **Paranoid Schitzo** - EGO Splitting good and projecting bad to protect themselves **Depressive** - The feeling of anxiety over loosing a loved object coupled with the sense of guilt over wanting to destroy that same object is resolved when they make amends for their previous feelings and attacks and feel love by and for their mother.

question

A. Paranoid-SchizoidPosition

answer

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 of the life death instinct onto the breast. Now rather than fearing its own death instinct, it fears the persecutory breast, while also having a relationship with the ideal breast which provides love and comfort. The infant now desires to keep the ideal breast inside its self as protection from the persecutors. To control this situation, infants adopt the paranoid-schizoid position, which is a tendency to organize experiences that include paranoid feelings of being persecuted and a splitting of internal and external objects into the good and the bad. They see the world as having both destructive and omnipotent qualities. The child must keep the good breast and bad breast separate as integrating them would threaten the good breasts safe harbor and risk annihilation. Rage and destructive feelings are aimed to the bad breast while love and comfort to the good breast. They attach a positive good identification to the good breast that gives them nourishment and attach a bad identification to the bad breast that brings hunger and death. This is a prototype for the subsequent development of ambivalent feelings towards a single person later on.

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B. Depressive Position

answer

Around 5-6 months infants begin to view external objects as whole and see that good and bad can exist in the same person. This allows them to paint a more realistic picture of their mother and recognize she is an independent person who can be both good and bad. The ego is also developing at this point and is able to internalize and tolerate more of its destructive feelings rather than projecting them on others. By depressive position, Klein meant the anxiety that infants experience around 5-6 months of age over losing their mother and yet, at the same time, wanting to destroy her. They realize they are loosing their mother and want to protect her from the dangers of their own destructive forces that had previously been projected on her.The feeling of anxiety over loosing a loved object coupled with the sense of guilt over wanting to destroy that same object is called depressive position. The loved object and the hated object are now the same thing. They desire to make amends for their previous feelings and attacks and feel empathy for their mother. 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 but return after each departure. They are not only to experience love from their mother, but also to display their own love for her. An incomplete resolution of the depressive position can result in the lack of trust, morbid mourning at the loss of a loved one and a variety of other disorders.

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Psychic Defense Mechanisms

answer

According to Klein, at early infancy children adopt various psychic defense mechanisms to protect their egos against anxiety aroused by their own destructive fantasies. Introjection, Projection, Splitting, Projective Identification

question

A. Psychic Defense Mechanisms: Introjection

answer

the fantasy of physically 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. When dangerous objects are introjected they become internal persecutors capable of terrifying the infant and leaving frightening residue that may be expressed in dreams or in an interest in fairy tales.

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B. Psychic Defense Mechanisms: Projection

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Projection is used to get rid of bad objects or project good. The fantasy that one's own bad or good feelings and impulses reside within another person is called projection. This projection can help alleviate anxiety of being destroyed by dangerous internal forces. Children project both good and bad images, especially onto their parents. These allow people to believe that their own subjective opinions are true.

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C. Psychic Defense Mechanisms: Splitting

answer

Infants tolerate good and bad aspects of themselves and of external objects by splitting, or mentally keeping apart, incompatible images. In order to do this the ego itself must be split. Thus the infant develops a picture of both the good me and the bad me that enables them to deal with both pleasurable and destructive impulses towards external objects. This splitting can have either positive or negative impact. if it is not extreme it can be positive and useful to both children and adults, because it allows them to like themselves while still recognizing some unlikable qualities However, if too rigid this splitting can lead to pathological repression. When children cannot accept their own bad behavior, they must deal with the destructive impulses by repressing them.

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D. Psychic Defense Mechanisms: Projective Identification

answer

Projective identification is the psychic defense mechanism whereby infants split off unacceptable parts of themselves, project them onto another object, and finally introject them back into themselves in an altered form. By taking it back into themselves infants feel that they become like that object. ex. The infant split off parts of their destructive impulse and project them to the bad breast. Then, they identify with the breast by introjecting it, a process that allows them to gain control over it. ex. a man with strong but unwanted dominating tendency projects those feeling on his wife, whom he sees as domineering. The man then subtly tried o get his wife to become domineering by acting excessively submissive. He does this in an attempt to internalize the newly projected image into himself to convince himself it is true.

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Internalizations

answer

After ( taking in) or introjecting external objects, infants organize them into a psychologically meaningful framework, a process that Klein called internalization. The three important internalizations include the EGO, SuperEGO and Oedipus complex.

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A. Kleins internalizations of the Ego

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Klein believed that the ego, or one's sense of self, reached maturity at a much earlier age than Freud. Fried believed that the ID dominated for much of early childhood. Klein, however, believed that although the ego is mostly unorganized at birth, it nevertheless is strong enough to feel anxiety, to use defense mechanisms and to form early object relations in both fantasy and reality. The ego begins to evolve with the first experience of feeding with the good breast and bad breast and these images provide a focal point for further expansion of the ego. all experiences are evaluated by the ego in relation to the good and bad breast. All good experiences are related to the good breast and bad experiences the bad breast etc. This first object relation thus becomes the prototype for the egos future development and later interpersonal relations. However, a unified ego emerges only after first splitting itself into the two parts—those that deal with the life instinct and those that relate to the death instinct. Although the infant strives for integration, they must deal with the opposing forces to avoid disintegration by splitting the ego into the good self and bad self. This dual image allows them to manage god and bad external objects. As an infant matures they see the world as more realistic, no longer seeing the world in terms of partial objects and their egos become more integrated.

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B. Kleins Internalization of the Superego

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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. While Freud conceptualized the superego as consisting of two subsystems : ego ideal ( inferiority) and conscious( guilt), Klien would concur for this in adults, but assert that in children the early super ego produces terror. Children fear being cut up, devoured and torn to pieces, all things much removed from any realistic danger. To manage this anxiety children's ego tries to separate life instinct from death, but cannot be totally separated so they are forced to defend themselves against their own actions. This harsh cruel superego is responsible for antisocial and criminal tendencies in adults. by the 5th or 6th year, the superego starts to arouse little anxiety but great guilt. it is transforming into a more realistic conscious. The super ego is not a consequence of the Oedipus complex, but grows along side it.

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C. Kleins Internalizations of the OedipusComplex

answer

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—the same time that Freud had suggested it began. Klein also believed 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 toward 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.

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Later Views of Object Relations

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

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A. Margaret Mahler's View

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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. They are self-involved entirely in a primary narcissism. 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.

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B. Heinz Kohut's View

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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. human relatedness is the core of personality , not drives. In caring for their physical and psychological needs, adults treat infants as if they had a sense of self. for example to parents reaction to an infant's behaviour will result in the infant taking in a "self-object" response as pride, guilt, shame or envy etc. The parents' behaviors and attitudes eventually help children form a sense of self that gives unity and consistency to their experiences.

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C. John Bowlby's Attachment Theory

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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: infants cry when caregiver is first out of site, (2) apathy and despair: as separation continues infants become quiet, sad, passive, listless and apathetic, and (3) emotional detachment from people, including the primary caregiver: when infants become emotionally detached and avoid or disregard caregiver. They are no longer upset when their mother leaves them and when the mother returns the infant avoids them. Children who reach the third stage of separation anxiety lack warmth and emotion in their later relationships.

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Mary Ainsworth and the Strange Situation

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Mary Ainsworth was born in Ohio in 1919 and died in 1999. She and her colleagues developed a technique called the Strange Situation for measuring the types of attachment styles— 1) secure attachment: when mother returns infants are happy and initiate contact. They are confident in the accessibility fo their mothers and feel secure to explore and play. 2)anxious-resistant attachment: Infants are ambivilant. When the mother leaves the room they become unusually upset, and when she returns they seek contact, but reject being soothed. They give conflicting messages 3)anxious-avoidant attachment: infants are calm when the mother leaves, they accept the stranger, and when their mother returns they avoid her or ignore her. In both kinds of insecure attachement, infants lack the ability to engage in effective play or exploration.

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Psychotherapy

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The goal of Klein's 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. She used play therapy in place of dream analysis and free association, believing young children express their conscious and unconscious wishes through play.

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Related Research

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Research on object relations has included a variety of topics, including eating disorders and adult relationships. One study of both topics was conducted by Smolak and Levine (1993) who found that bulimia was associated with detachment from parents, whereas anorexia was associated with high levels of guilt and conflict over separation from parents. More recently, Steven Huprich and colleges (Huprich, Stepp, Graham, & Johnson, 2004) found that both men and women who were insecurely attached and self-focused (egocentric) had greater difficulty in controlling their compulsive eating than did those who were more securely attached and less self-focused. Attachment theory was originally conceptualized by John Bowlby, who emphasized the relationship between parent and child. Since the 1980s, researchers have begun to examine systematically the attachment relationships in adults, especially in romantic relationships. The usefulness of attachment theory was investigated in a classic study by Cindy Hazan and Phil Shaver (1987). These researchers found that people with secure early attachments experienced more trust, closeness, and positive emotions in their adult love relationships than did other people. S teven Rholes and colleagues found that as they predicted, avoidant individuals do not seek out additional information about their romantic partners' intimate feelings and dreams, and anxious individuals seek more information about their partners' intimacy-related issues and goals for the future (Rholes, Simpson, Tran, Martin, & Friedman, 2007). Rivka Davidovitz and others also examined attachment style in leader- follower relationships, specifically military officers and their soldiers (Davidovitz, Mikulincer, Shaver, Izsak, & Popper, 2007; Popper & Mayseless, 2003). They found units with officers who had an avoidant attachment style to be less cohesive, and their soldiers reported lower psychological well-being than members of other units. Anxiously attached officers' units rated low on instrumental functioning, but high on socioemotional functioning. Recent research shows that attachment theory is important to understanding a wide range of adult relationships.

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Critique of Object Relations Theory

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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.

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Concept of Humanity

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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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According to Klein, when the female Oedipus complex is successfully resolved

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,The little girl will develop positive feelings toward both parents

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Klein believed that during the female Oedipus complex, the girl fantasizes that

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the father's penis feeds the mother with babies

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According to Klein, the two basic positions are

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the paranoid-schizoid and the depressive

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If a hungry infant cries and kicks, Klein would say that it is fantasizing about

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kicking or destroying the "bad" breast

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Klein extended Freud's psychoanalysis by emphasizing

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very early infancy

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Klein agreed with Freud that people can be motivated by

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needing others. dependence upon others. competition.

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Discuss Ainsworth's Strange Situation.

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Ainsworth measured the attachment style between an infant and the caregiver called the Strange Situation. It's a 20-minute session where a mother and child are alone in a playroom when a stranger comes into the room and shortly thereafter begins to interact with the child. The mother goes away for two separate two-minute periods. In the first session, the infant is left alone with the stranger, and in the second session the child is left completely alone. In a secure attachment, when the mother returns the infant is happy and enthusiastic, initiating contact. All secure children are confident in the accessibility of the caregiver. In the anxious-resistant style, the infants are doubtful. They become upset when the mother leaves and when she returns they go to her but they reject attempts at being soothed by her. In the anxious-avoidant style, the infants stay calm when the mother leaves and they ignore and avoid the mother when she returns. Insecure infants lack ability to engage in exploration.

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Klein agreed with Freud that people can be motivated by

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All of these are correct.

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To Klein, an introjected object

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is phantasy of internalizing the object in a physical form.

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Klein came to psychoanalysis as

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None of these is correct.

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Melanie Klein had an especially warm relationship with

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Neither of these is correct.

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Klein extended Freud's psychoanalysis by emphasizing

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very early infancy.

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Klein believed that the male Oedipus complex is resolved mostly when the boy

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establishes positive relationships toward both parents.

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Mahler believed that when infants realize that they cannot satisfy their own basic needs, they

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seek a symbiotic relationship with their mother.

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Klein called the fantasy that one's own feelings actually reside in another person

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projection.

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Object relations theory differs from Freud's theory in that it

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All these are correct.

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Kohut's narcissistic needs include

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the need to exhibit the grandiose self.

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The aim of Kleinian is to

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reduce depressive anxieties and persecutory fears.

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Klein assumed that infants come into the world with

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an active phantasy life.

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Mahler believed that children begin to develop feelings of personal identity during which development stage?

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separation-individuation

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According to Klein, when the female Oedipus complex is successfully resolved, the little girl will

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develop positive feelings toward both parents.

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Klein suggested that psychic defense mechanisms

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protect the ego against anxiety aroused by destructive phantasies.

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According to Klein, the child's first model for interpersonal relations is the

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breast.

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Which issue became part of a bitter debate between Melanie Klein and Anna Freud during the 1920s and 1930s?

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the idea of childhood psychoanalysis

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Klein claimed that infants use the paranoid-schizoid position to

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control the good breast and fight off its persecutors.

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According to Bowlby, infants who become separated from their primary caregivers experience separation anxiety. The first stage of separation is the

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protest stage.

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In contrast to Freud, Klein believed that the superego

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is much more harsh and cruel.

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Klein's depressive position includes

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anxiety over losing a loved object and guilt for wanting to destroy it.

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The aim of Kleinian therapy is to

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reduce depressive anxieties and persecutory fears.

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An infant remains calm when her mother exists the room, leaving her with a stranger. When the mother returns, the infants ignores her. According to Ainsworth, this infant is displaying the _____ attachment style.

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anxious-avoidant

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Research by Hazan and Shaver found that people whose adult love relationships include trust, closeness, and positive emotions had which early childhood attachment style?

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secure

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Which object relations theorists strongly emphasized the process by which the self evolves?

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Kohut

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On the dimensions for a concept of humanity, Klein's theory rates lowest on

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free choice and uniqueness.

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Klein believed that children introject their mother into their psychic structure. This means that they

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believe that their mother is inside their own body.

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Bowlby's attachment theory was based on studies of

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infants and primates.

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According to Klein, the two basic positions are

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paranoid-schizoid and depressive.

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Bowlby's theory assumes that

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the relationship between infant and caregiver becomes a model for suture interpersonal relations.

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Klein called the process in which infants split of unacceptable parts of themselves, project these parts onto another object, and finally introject these parts back into themselves

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projective identification.

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Which object relations theorists spent much time observing normal babies as they bonded with their mothers during the first 3 years of life?

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Margaret Mahler

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An infant remains calm when her mother exits the room, leaving her with a stranger. When the mother returns, the infant ignores her. According to Ainsworth, this infant is displaying the ______ attachment style.

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anxious-avoidant

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Klein believed that during the female Oedipus complex, the girl

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phantasizes that the father's penis feeds the mother with babies.

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According to Klein, the person or part of a person through which the aim of an instinct is satisfied is called

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an object.

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According to Klein, infants use splitting as a mean of

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controlling good and bad aspects of themselves.

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Stephen Huprich and colleagues found that insecurely attached college student

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had greater difficulty controlling compulsive eating.

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Klein contended that when introjected, dangerous objects

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become internal persecutors.

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When object relations theory is applied to explaining the formation of eating disorders

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inconsistent caregivers create anxiety, so an individual sees food as a means of comfort.

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Klein called the fantasy that one's feelings actually reside in another person

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project.

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Klein called the fantasy that one's own feelings actually reside in another

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projection

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According to Bowlby, both humans and other primates experience separation anxiety. The stage unique to humans is the ________ stage.

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detachment

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Stephen and Huprich and colleagues found that insecurely attached college students

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had greater difficulty controlling compulsive eating.

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According to Klein, the phantasies of an infant are

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unconscious.

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Mahler's principal concern was with

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the psychological birth of the child.

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Mahler believed that children begin to develop feelings of personal identity during which developmental stage?

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separation-individuation

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In contrast to Freud, Klien believed that the superego

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is much more harsh and cruel.

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Klein called the process in which infants split off unacceptable part of themselves, project these parts onto another object, and finally introject these parts back into themselves

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projective identification.

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Klein's conception of a "position" is different from "stage of development" in that "positions" are

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not referring to periods of time

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Stephen Huprich and colleagues found that insecurely attached college students

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had greater difficulty controlling compulsive eating.

PSY 206 Ch. 5 Klein: Object Relation Theory – Flashcards

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