Object Relations Therapy
Vincent Frein and Carole Dilling
e-Book 2016 International Psychotherapy Institute
From The Psychotherapy Guidebook edited by Richie Herink and Paul R. Herink
All Rights Reserved
Created in the United States of America
Copyright © 2012 by Richie Herink and Paul Richard Herink
Table of Contents
DEFINITION
HISTORY
TECHNIQUE & APPLICATIONS
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Object Relations Therapy
Vincent Frein and Carole Dilling
DEFINITION
In his book Schizoid Phenomena, Object Relations and the Self, H.
Guntrip states, “I cannot think of psychotherapy as a technique but only as the
provision of the possibility of a genuine, reliable, understanding, respecting,
caring personal relationship in which a human being whose true self has been
crushed by the manipulative techniques of those who only wanted to make
him not be a nuisance to them can begin at last to feel his own true feelings,
and think his own spontaneous thoughts, and find himself to be real.”
To expand on this definition:
1. An analyst can’t guarantee a therapeutic relationship or a
relationship with a therapeutic result or, in fact, a
relationship. He can only provide time and provide for the
possibility of some kind of genuine relationship developing
in which the patient is able to be helped with his subjective
difficulties.
2. What the analyst sees in an adult as psychic flaws represents the
efforts of a child to deal with terror and fear, to make
whatever adaptions were necessary to survive and to
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preserve relations within his original family.
3. Analysis and cure demand of the analyst a readiness to be more a
“scientific researcher” or a “professional” or a “therapist.” He
must be able to become personally and emotionally involved
in a unique relationship with this particular individual.
4. It is within the context of this caring and personal relationship that
the patient will have the courage to begin to experience the
analyst as possessing the same qualities as the parental
figures who originally interfered with spontaneous and
healthy growth. Rather than discouraging this
misperception, the analyst helps the patient to experience
and relive these feelings in relation to him. The analyst also
helps the patient understand the childhood origins of the
feelings, and the way in which they have been internalized
and are projected into all present relationships (transference
analysis).
5. When the original failures of childhood are uncovered and
understood, the patient stands face-to-face with needs that
were never met. At these deepest levels of regression, the
analyst must, now especially, be more than a projection
screen or scientific researcher and must (symbolically or
actually) meet these needs that are no less real in the
present than they were in the original childhood situation.
The failure of the analyst to meet these needs is equivalent
to a repetition of the original trauma of childhood. It is only
when the analyst is able to supply the human provision
needed in childhood that the patient is able to grow in a real
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and spontaneous way that was formerly impossible.
In essence, with all of his symptoms and defenses, a patient comes to
analysis to find someone who, in taking the place of the parents, will enable
him to grow. Psychotherapy ultimately depends on the analyst’s ability to
supply this human provision.
HISTORY
Although a study of object relations theory would have to begin with
Freud (Mourning and Melancholia; The Ego and the Id), Freud’s thinking did
not emphasize the object but rather remained basically an understanding of
personality in terms of drive theory. Freud saw the satisfaction of the impulse
or inhibition of impulse as the primary determinant in early development,
and he pointed to the significance of various erotogenic zones in the evolving
personality structure. In this framework thumb sucking in earliest infancy
would be seen as an attempt to satisfy a sucking impulse. In object relations
theory, the shift is toward an emphasis on the object; all libidinal strivings are
seen as the seeking of an object rather than satisfaction of impulse. In this
case the erotogenic zone becomes merely a pathway to the object. The
infant’s desire is for the mother. The mouth is merely a channel of contact
with the object — the mother’s breast. Here thumb sucking can be seen as the
infant’s attempt to provide a substitute object (the thumb) for his natural
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object (mother-breast).
The shift from a theory of libido to a theory of object relations has been
in process since the late 1930s, even though object relations theory has only
recently begun to achieve popularity in the United States. The major
theoretical contributions have been from British analysts, especially Klein,
Fairbairn, Winnicott, Gun-trip, Kahn, Milner, and Balint. While object relations
theory can be considered a school of thought, it is important to note that there
is no one founder. It is rather a body of theory that has been developed by
many analysts, each doing his own independent thinking and each making his
own unique contribution. The common theme that emerges in the work of
each of these contributors is the focus on the importance of the object
relation in the earliest stages of human development. It is their enormous
contributions to the understanding of the earliest beginnings of life that lead
them to important implications for therapy and the patient-therapist
relationship.
TECHNIQUE AND APPLICATIONS
The words “technique” and “application” are more suited to the sciences
than they are to persons and personal relations. Technique or application are
words that could apply to some kinds of therapy — chemotherapy, shock
therapy, desensitization techniques, goal-directed short-term therapies, and
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the various forms of behavior modification therapies. All of these aim in some
way for a regulation or modification of behavior where the individual can
easily be seen in impersonal terms.
When we look at the personal, we realize how unsuited thinking in
terms of technique becomes when we start to talk about what is human,
unique, and individual. It is clear that for human development what is
essential are the qualities of the parent and who the parent is in relation to
the child. Similarly, the goal of psychoanalytic training should be not to teach
a theory of a technique but to allow the analyst to develop into a fairly self-
aware, well-related, integrated, empathic human being who desires to and is
able to enter a relationship with another person, enabling that person to
overcome his fears and discover his own individuality. It is with this
understanding that Winnicott concludes that “the ultimate outcome of
psychotherapy depends not on what the analyst does in relation to the
patient but rather on who the therapist is unself-consciously in relation to the
patient.” (1958)
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