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KMID : 0385320050160020194
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Journal of Korean Psychoanalytic Society
2005 Volume.16 No. 2 p.194 ~ p.201
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What is Object Relations
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Lee Byung-Wook
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Abstract
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The concept of object relations has a very incomprehensible and metapsychological dimension, and the concept of the representational world is also very metaphysical. These concepts include all the philosophical theses like objectivity and subjectivity, self and other, reality and unreality, fantasy and reality, part and whole, boundary between me and not me, true and false self, the world and me etc. The British object relations theory is one of the most radical schools in psychoanalytic history. Melanie Klein set up the cornerstone for it, but she had succeeded Freud’s id psychology, including the thanatos concept, and while she had a concept of whole or part object relations, she did not go into internal object relations. The concept of internal object relations was first suggested not by Klein but by Fairbairn. We understand that object relations means relations with internal objects, and that object relationships means interpersonal relations. Klein stressed only the unconscious infantile phantasy and wishes, including primitive defense style, while Winnicott and Bion stressed only the maternal function, disregarding the father role in theory and technique. Winnicott’s holding function and Bion’s alpha function or containing function are entirely maternal, and therefore their techniques seem to be intuitive, intersubjective and partially supportive. In America, ego psychology was established in psychoanalytic tradition separate from Kohutian self psychology. Edith Jacobson and Kernberg attempted to bridge ego psychology and object relations theory, but without much success. They suggested the complex dynamic representational world as the basic nature of the human mind development and the importance of the primary affect theory. Nowadays many conservative ego psychologists can not ignore object relations theory and techniques in regard to respect for theoretical diversity and the desirable widening of scope in the bulky system of psychoanalytic knowledge.
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KEYWORD
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Object relation, Psychoanalysis
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