The Impact of Sight Loss in Social Work Practice
Francis K. O. Yuen, Carol B. Cohen, Kristine Tower in Disability and Social Work Education, 2013
While object relations theory is rooted in some general Freudian beliefs, it moves away from the focus on psychic energy, adaptive functioning (ego psychology), and into a more relational sphere of understanding human development. Object relations theory highlights the interactions individuals have with significant others in their lives, the internalizations of these interactions, and the future role these experiences have in one’s psychological development (Melano-Flanagan, 1996). Historically, two distinct schools of object relations theory emerged; the British School and the American School. Leading contributors of the British School included Melanie Klein, W. R. D. Fairbairn, Harry Guntrip, John Bowlby, and D. W. Winicott. The American School included such clinical scholars as Otto Kernberg, Margaret Mahler, and James Masterson (Melano-Flanagan, 1996). This following discussion will borrow concepts from Winicott’s conception of object relations theory to understand disabilities. I will focus on two specific Winicottian concepts; the holding environment and the development of the true self.
What is the self?
Tamara Ownsworth in Self-Identity after Brain Injury, 2014
A particularly influential adaptation of psychoanalytic theory is object relations theory (Kohut, 1971; Mahler, 1975), which posits that one's self-structure is largely shaped by interactions with significant others. During the first three years of life ‘separation’ (distinguishing oneself from caregivers) and ‘individuation’ (forming one's own skills and personality) occur to support an emerging ‘core identity’ (Mahler, 1975). This psychological development is influenced by the quality of relationship or emotional bond between the infant and their caregiver/s, with supportive and empathic relations contributing to autonomous self (Kohut, 1971). With its focus on early relationships and parenting, object relations theory stimulated the emergence of attachment theory (see Bowlby, 1977), a leading socio-emotional developmental framework for understanding individuals’ characteristic responses during interactions with others. Attachment styles entail working models of the self and others that develop during infancy and childhood and persist into adulthood.
What is psychotherapy?
Patricia Hughes, Daniel Riordan in Dynamic Psychotherapy Explained, 2017
Cognitive analytic therapy is a brief focal therapy. It incorporates ideas from cognitive therapy, object relations theory and developmental psychology. According to CAT theory, psychological problems arise from the use of ineffective procedures to cope with emotional states. These procedures may have been useful in the past, perhaps in childhood, to cope with emotional distress, but in the present they are maladaptive. The therapist is highly active, working with the patient to build up a file of typical problem procedures over about 16 sessions. Presenting problems, reformulated as target problem procedures, are sketched out on paper for the therapist and patient to look at together. The approach is similar to cognitive therapy in that it asks the patient to become aware of his thoughts and feelings while seeking more adaptive alternatives, and is similar to psychodynamic therapy in linking present behaviours to past experience. CAT has been used to treat patients with depression, eating disorder and personality disorder.
Essential Knowledge for Clinical Social Work Practice: Social Work Faculty Perspectives
Published in Smith College Studies in Social Work, 2019
Clinical social work draws from multiple theoretical frameworks, including psychodynamic, biological theories, cognitive behavioral, narrative, and family systems (Berzoff & Drisko, 2015). But within clinical social work and the broader social work literature, scholars disagree on the “theoretical essence” (Tosone, 2016, p. 531) of clinical social work. Psychodynamic theories, such as ego psychology, object relations theory, self-psychology, relational theory, and attachment theory, have been regarded as a central part of clinical social work (Tosone, 2016). Psychodynamic theory has had the longest tradition in clinical social work and “provide[s] ways of understanding and explaining the clients’ and practitioners’ inner life and world of meanings” (Simpson et al., 2007, p. 7). Relational theory, considered a more contemporary theory and influenced by object relations theory (Berzoff, 2011), is a two-person vision of psychotherapy, where the therapist’s psychology is acknowledged as being part of the dynamic process.
Flexibility and Rigidity in Object Relational Functioning: Assessing Change in Suicidal Ideation and Global Psychiatric Functioning Using the SCORS–G
Published in Journal of Personality Assessment, 2018
Positive interpersonal relationships have long been known to function both as an indication of adaptive personality functioning as well as a protective factor against serious mental health concerns, including depression, anxiety, and suicidal behavior (Fowler, 2012; Joiner, 2005). The underlying cognitive, affective, and developmental processes that influence interpersonal functioning are the focus of object relations theory, which emphasizes the importance of quality of internalized interpersonal representations and the influence of these structures on how individuals interpret and navigate their interpersonal world (Blatt, 2004; Westen, 1991a). “Healthy” object relations, in which understanding of self and other is relatively nuanced and generally predictable and well-intentioned, have been shown to relate to lower levels of psychopathology, and greater interpersonal engagement in clinical samples (Fowler et al., 2004; Hibbard, Hilsenroth, Hibbard, & Nash, 1995; Porcerelli, Cogan, & Hibbard, 1998). In contrast, “pathological” object relations are characterized by an understanding of self and other that is overly concrete or distorted and where expectations for malevolence or danger in relational contexts predominate. These pathological object relations have been found to relate to increased suicidality, lower treatment compliance, and general deficits in affect regulation and psychological health (Ackerman, Hilsenroth, Clemence, Weatherill, & Fowler, 2000; Lewis et al., 2016; Porcerelli et al., 2006; Westen, 1991b).
Contact: William S. Burroughs’s philosophy of love
Published in International Review of Psychiatry, 2023
Object relations theory is often thought to have begun when Melanie Klein began to expand upon Freud’s theory of pregenital stages. Her main innovation was her detection of an Oedipal-like mixture of love and hate directed by children towards their mothers (Klein, 1935, 1946/1986). During the first psychosexual phase, the oral-cannibalistic, the child experiences the breast as either a ‘good breast’ that gives satisfaction, or a ‘bad breast’ that poisons the child by withholding the life-giving liquid from him (Klein, 1935, pp. 140–141). The anal phase, especially in Klein’s early writings, follows the Freudian line, but adds an emphasis on the child’s temptation to view the parents as persecutors who could annihilate him in retaliation for the phantasied cannibalistic attacks made upon the ‘bad breast’ during the oral period (Klein, 1946/1986, pp. 187–188). The other challenge for the toilet-training child is to avoid becoming wracked with subconscious anxiety and guilt over what might be termed his ‘oral-iginal sin’ (my term) of wishing to rid himself of their existence by suppressing his knowledge of them as ‘bad objects’ (Klein & Klein, 1952/1975, pp. 72–73).
Related Knowledge Centers
- Attachment Theory
- Breast
- Psychoanalysis
- Psychoanalytic Theory
- Psychodynamics
- Psyche
- Drive Theory
- Transference
- Mother
- Infant