'Objective Relations Theory\r'

'Projective Identification copyright 1996 Hannah Fox, CSW, BCD each(prenominal) rights reserved †whitethorn non be reproduced without permission of Hannah Fox ([email protected] com) This muniment send packing be bring at: http://www. intent- dealing. com This presentation will explore several(prenominal) concepts and techniques in spite of appearance the Object transaction possibility of family therapy which, if chthonianstood, provides a framework for looking at dyads and families. Before public lecture about this draw near to family therapy, I would compar able to explain what fair game relations scheme is all about.Object Relations Theory was originated in England by a group of British psychoanalysts, including Klein, Balint, Fairburn, Winnicott, and Guntrip. Object relations theory was a break from Freuds force digest position, and differs from it as follows: Freuds model held that a neonate infant is driven by wight instincts, such(prenominal)(pr enominal) as hunger, thirst, and plea positive(predicate), tho cannot revive to others. Relationships with others only rise by and by in the scarper of satisfying those needs. In this sense, Freuds model considers races to be secondary.In contrast, goal relations theory maintains that the baby can relate to others at a genuinely proterozoic years and that relationships with others argon, therefore, primary. The drive to attach one egotism to an object is considered to be the major motivating force. Since we are talking about object relations theory, this is a cracking eon to ask what an object is. In object relations theory, the intelligence operation object is physical exercised with a rattling specific fuddleding. Its not literally a physical individual, scarcely an congenital psychic structure that is formed without untimely exploitation.This mental structure is built through with(predicate) and through a series of hold ups with significant others throug h a psychic transition called introjection. Because an babes originally experiences are usually with its return, she is usually the prime(prenominal) internal object formed by the infant. Eventually, the pay move out and other significant slew a athe likes of arrest internalized objects. Introjection, the process of creating internal mental objects, leads to other process called ripping. rending occurs because the infant cannot tolerate certain feelingings such as rage and longing, which occur in all normal development.As a result, the infant has to severalize send off severalizes of itself and throttle them. What happens to those keep d profess split-off fall a violates? They are dealt with through another all-important(a) process, called drawive assignment. Projective naming itself is a very specific part of object relations theory. It is a defense weapon which was conceptualized by Melanie Klein in 1946, having evolved from her extensive field of view and work with children. According to Klein, projective identification consists of dissever off parts of the self, projecting them into another per word of honor, and then identifying with them in the other person.For example, the earliest relationship the infant has with its become is ply and touching, unless the mother is not ever able to respond quickly fair to middling to the infants need. Since the earthy rage and longing the infant feels at such times are intolerable, to survive these feelings the infant â€Å"splits them off” and represses them from its consciousness. The â€Å"split off”feelings can be idea of as other parts of the self (ego). When such splitting takes place, the infant is assuage of the rage yet has placed that part of itself inside the mother.To make itself whole over again it mustiness identify with the mother. The mother may or may not permit herself to become the cntainer for the infants nix feelings. Even if she doesnt, the pro jective identification free occurs. The above process begins in the first half year of life, cognize as the paranoid-schizoid position. It is characterized by an baron to detach good feelings from rotten, but an in mightiness to realise the mother from the self. Depending on how consistent the mothering is, the infant may or may not progress to a uplifteder level of development kat oncen as the depressive position.In the depressive position, which starts at about eight months of age, the child takes bandaging its bad feelings from the mother and separates from her. The mother is directly ascertainn as a separate object, with two good and bad feelings of her own. The infant is alert of its own good and bad feelings. For a child to reach this level of development, the earlier mothering must be consistent. The mother must she-bop down received near of the childs project feelings. A child who reaches the depressive position will, in adulthood, be capable of experiencing, at best, such feelings as empathy, or will at least become neurotic.In contrast, if the mothering is not consistent, the child cant take book binding its communicate feelings and splitting continues twain inside and outside the child. It corpse in the paranoid-schizoid position or, at best, a precarious form of the depressive position. This type of development is associated with borderline personalities. In the above infant-mother example, the repress parts of the self, if unresolved, will remain repressed into adulthood. Those parts will govern the excerption of matrimonial partner and the temper of marital relationships, and by extension the nature of relationships with children.By the time the twin or family come to therapy the projective identification process has managely progressed to the point of existence obvious to the healer, and will be seen in the fellow members behavior toward each other. This is usually not so in individual therapy because it much takes t ime to build the transference relationship with the therapist. So what does this reckon for the therapist? What does a therapist father to know in order to work with a family, employ the object relations approach? The therapist needs to be trained in individual developmental heory from infancy to ripening and to understand that the internal object domain is built up in a child, modified in an adult and re-enacted in the family. The family has a developmental life unit of ammunition of its own, and as it goes through its series of tasks from early nurturing of its new members, to emancipation of its childishs, to taking apprehension of its aging members, the familys adaptation is challenged at all(prenominal) stage by unresolved issues in the adult members early life cycle. Conflicts within each of its individual family members may queer to disrupt the adaption previously achieved.If any member is unavailing to adapt to new development, pathology, like projective identifi cation, becomes a stumbling block to future well-preserved development. The clinical approach is to develop, with the family, an understanding of the nature and origins of their current interactional difficulties, starting from their experience in the here- and-now of the therapeutic school terms, and exploring the unconscious intrapsychic and social conflicts that are preventing further strong development. reading material and insight are thus the agents of family change.By express the projective identifications that take place among family members, and having individuals take stern their split-off parts, members can be freed to continue effectual development. If further therapy is indicated, individual therapy would be a recommendation. Symptom reduction in individuals is not necessarily a goal here. In fact, individual family members may become more symptomatic as projective identificationsare taken abide and the members become more anxious. To do this, the therapist n eeds the following four capabilities: . The ability to provide a â€Å"holding surround”for the family †a place which is consistent †so that eventually the family comes to feel comfortable copious to be themselves in the presence of the therapist. 2. An ability to understand the â€Å"theme”of each session, so that a broad theme can be identified over the course of finessement. 3. An ability to interpret the latent bailiwick of diligents manifest statements. 4. An understanding of unconscious processes like transference and countertransference.Given those tools, it is the therapists job to uncover the projective identifications in the family that prevent the children from having a levelheaded development. once these projections are uncovered, and the split-off parts given back to the family members they belong to, children are freer to continue healthy development. Having introduced projective identification, Id like to show how this process operates la ter in life-in couples and families-and is a framework for doing couple and family therapy. Im going to present two cases-one of a couple and one of a family-to show how projective identification works.A male patient of tap with little emulation fell in love with a cleaning woman who accompanyingly pushed him to be ambitious. As it turned out, the woman had been repressing her own ambition under pressure from a father who didnt regard women should work. This woman was quite intelligent and obtained a professional degree, yet she chose to stifle her ambition in order to please her father. She remained hooklike on her father, both stimulatedly and financially. The husband, my patient, was a professional but quite unambitious. His familys ism was that one is lucky to contract a job and pay the bills.His father had held the resembling low paying job for xx years although he, too, had a professional degree. So wherefore did these two people countenance married? Since it was unacceptable for her to be ambitious, the married woman needed somebody to contain those feelings for her. My patient was the ideal object because, although he had an midland ambition, he had no parental hurt for these strivings. Therefore, he was predisposed to accept and interact in his wifes projection. What is the effect of projective identification when a couple has children?The following example shows how parents use their children as objects. Fern was a woman in her second marriage with two adolescent children. When Fern was a child, her mother favored her brother. The depicted object she received from her mother was that men were important and had to be taken care of, plot women were pudden-head and born to serve men. both(prenominal) of Ferns husbands agreed with her mothers philosophy, so Fern spent most of her married life serving them. When the family came to see me, both children were having emotional problems. The son was a heavy user of pot and cocaine.His bab y had emotional and learning problems in school. Fern had project into her son that males were special and needed to be taken care of. Its not disenfranchised to see why the son colluded with his mother. The rewards of pass judgment her projected feelings were too hard to resist, so when he reached adolescence he satisfied his immoderate dependency needs with drugs. The message Ferns missy received was that she was unimportant and stupid. Why did Fern project these feelings onto her young lady? Fern grew up unable to develop her own career goals because her other handle her wishes to go to college.For Fern to feel sufficiently qualified and achieve some career success, she had to spoil rid of feelings that she was stupid and unimportant. So she projected those feelings on to her lady friend and was then able to start a small business. To lift creation totally rejected by her mother, the girl colluded by remaining stupid and unimportant to herself. Ferns reenactment with h er female child of her mothers relationship with her is a form of projective identification called â€Å"identification with the aggressor,”because Fern is functioning as if she is her own mother and her daughter is her (when she was a child).Ferns relationship to her son is also similar to the relationship Ferns mother had to Ferns brother. Because Fern is treating her children so differently, when they grow up they will fill very different views of this family. This explains why, in therapy, siblings very much talk about the same family very differently. Notice how unresolved feelings from childhood, which Fern split off and repressed, greatly affected her relationship with both children. What do you remember is going on in her second marriage? straighta track I will present an demonstrable transcript of part of a session I recently had with this family.As you will see, it illustrates the process of projective identification and will serve as a basis for further dis cussion. T: Fern, I wonder, when Donald was talking about be like Roberta and backside asked him a marvel how did you feel? F: What do you call up how did I feel? T: When John asked Donald when he figured out that he was like Roberta and Donald said skilful now. J: How do you feel about him locution just now. T: And you changed the subject and I wondered what you were feeling. F: I dont know. I T: Donald owned up to some feelings that he was like his father and that part of what he byword in Roberta was like himself.F: Donald is emphatically part of D: No but what shes check outing is that you changed the subject. That is why shes wondering if you eat up some feelings about that. T: Exactly. You seemed to clear moved away from what was going on here. John was talking to Donald R: She doesnt regard us to be like our father. T: Maybe that was upsetting to you? R: He wasnt good to her. D: Subconsciously maybe. Its stocky but its there. F: Well, I dont like Martin, natura lly. Its true. I dont like him †I dont think hes a nice person. R: You dont like him at all? D: She loves him but doesnt like himF: I loved him but I never liked him as a person. I never conception he was a good person; that he really cared about me, that he took care of me, that he was ever concern with me. I remember a couple of things that †I remember having a flaming(a) nose one night when I was pregnant and he went out to play racketball and left me alone. Things like that †He was mean to me †he had no compassion for me. D: Thats one thing, Im not like my father. F: Im not saying †Im trying to say I see certain characteristics of their father in them. T: How does that make you feel?F: How does that make me feel? I dont know. I guess part of it, not too good because I would or else them be above that, that is, above that irritability, why cant they rise above that anger. I dont involve them to be like that because it didnt get Martin anywhere in li fe. J: I fuck off a very deep question. F: I dont know if I requisite to answer it. J: You may not but how can you find that with Roberta and Donald macrocosm so much alike in prsonality, like Martin, how do you separate Donalds creation like Martin and judge it from Roberta and saying Roberta is just like her father and not accepting it?F: Because Donald never locateed his anger at me as a person, as a human existence. In other words he never †he might have been hot under the collar(predicate) but he never said to me †he never was mean to me, whereas Roberta has been mean to me, attacked me as a person, Donald never attacked me as a person. T: Donald attacked himself as a person. D: Hmm. T: By taking drugs. F: But he never attacked me as a person. D: Never, Im not a mean person. I dont have that mean streak in me. T: You sure? F: You may have it in you D: I dont have a mean streak. F: Sure, everyone T: Who did you coach that meanness to?Roberta directs it out to her mother and who did you direct it to? D: I direct it to her. T: No R: No you say it at yourself. D: Myself, yeah †Im mean to myself. F: You were destructive to yourself. T: So what D: But thats different from being destructive to other human beings. F: No, maybe you would have been better off being mean to me or soul else. Or to your father. R: Lets get back to Uncle Johns question. J: No this is part of the answer. D: Yeah †Im mean to myself. I quieten am. But I dont destroy myself with anything †with any kind of substances, but I still am.R: What do you mean, you still are? D: Im hard on myself, critical of myself. R: See, you would never think that of Donald because he whirls somewhat like hes above the world. He does. T: But why would somebody walk †D: But Ive been working on that very heavily now T: But why would someone D: Thats the way I am; its the way I am. T: Why would someone walk around like that. D: Its very basic †when I was on drugs an d everything like that and Im fully certified of it, awake that Im conceited and like I have that air about me †Im fully aware of it.When I was on drugs I had that part to me but it wasnt as strong as it is now. T: You werent aware of it then? D: I wasnt really in verify of the fact that I control my conceitedness now †I choose to put that on because I have nothing, I have nothing else now. T: Right D: It seems its like my only defense, to be self-important and to be conceited because I dont have anything else to back me up so I figure that wall. R: Why do you need †I dont need anything. D: Roberta †because when I was on the drugs and everything like that, it was a great wall for me to keep everybody out.Now I want everybody to think big things. news Now lets look at the latent content of this session and identify the projective identifications. Fern was angry at Roberta and not at Donald — why? As John pointed out with his question, Fern saw Roberta an d Donald very differently, because of her projective identifications into them. Fern saw Roberta as bad and stupid, just as her mother viewed her when she was a child. She put all her badness and negative feelings into Roberta. Roberta then acted out Ferns feelings by being emotionally disturbed and acting stupid.Her emotional problems exacerbated what had been a genuine perceptual impairment. Because of her projective identification, Fern saw Donald as the good son who needed special attention and care, which was what Fern had seen between her own mother and her brother. Because Donald was not fully accepted by his mother, especially for those qualities that were like his natural father, he acted out his mothers feelings. He was good to her but repressed the rejected parts, tour them against himself by secretly taking drugs. Yet, his mother continued to hold him in high regard, even after his habit had been found out.What Fern did was re-create the family constellation in which sh e had swelled up. Because both children were carrying out their mothers inner life, they were unable to grow and develop their own healthy structures. The next step in therapy was to get Fern to take back the split-off parts of herself: the devaluing of her daughter and the overvaluing of her son. This should help the children take back the part of themselves which they split off and repressed. In subsequent sessions, Fern and I explored what it was like growing up with her mother.She explained that her mother told her that she was stupid and that her brother was special. Ferns daughter told Fern that she was doing the same thing as her mother and that the daughter felt stupid. Fern responded that she had never meant to treat her daughter as stupid. She also realize that her son had many problems and was not so special. In doing so, Fern reclaimed her split-off parts, freeing her daughter to continue a healthier development. Her son was able to leave home and become more independe nt.\r\n'