Fairbairn's Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting
Fairbairn's Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting

Author: David P. Celani

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 242

ISBN-13: 0231149077

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W. R. D. Fairbairn (1889-1964) challenged the dominance of Freud's drive theory with a psychoanalytic theory based on the internalization of human relationships. Fairbairn assumed that the unconscious develops in childhood and contains dissociated memories of parental neglect, insensitivity, and outright abuse that are impossible the children to tolerate consciously. In Fairbairn's model, these dissociated memories protect developing children from recognizing how badly they are being treated and allow them to remain attached even to physically abusive parents. Attachment is paramount in Fairbairn's model, as he recognized that children are absolutely and unconditionally dependent on their parents. Kidnapped children who remain attached to their abusive captors despite opportunities to escape illustrate this intense dependency, even into adolescence. At the heart of Fairbairn's model is a structural theory that organizes actual relational events into three self-and-object pairs: one conscious pair (the central ego, which relates exclusively to the ideal object in the external world) and two mostly unconscious pairs (the child's antilibidinal ego, which relates exclusively to the rejecting parts of the object, and the child's libidinal ego, which relates exclusively to the exciting parts of the object). The two dissociated self-and-object pairs remain in the unconscious but can emerge and suddenly take over the individual's central ego. When they emerge, the "other" is misperceived as either an exciting or a rejecting object, thus turning these internal structures into a source of transferences and reenactments. Fairbairn's central defense mechanism, splitting, is the fast shift from central ego dominance to either the libidinal ego or the antilibidinal ego-a near perfect model of the borderline personality disorder. In this book, David Celani reviews Fairbairn's five foundational papers and outlines their application in the clinical setting. He discusses the four unconscious structures and offers the clinician concrete suggestions on how to recognize and respond to them effectively in the heat of the clinical interview. Incorporating decades of experience into his analysis, Celani emphasizes the internalization of the therapist as a new "good" object and devotes entire sections to the treatment of histrionic, obsessive, and borderline personality disorders.

Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting
Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting

Author: David P. Celani

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2010-04-07

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 0231520239

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W. R. D. Fairbairn (1889-1964) challenged the dominance of Freud's drive theory with a psychoanalytic theory based on the internalization of human relationships. Fairbairn assumed that the unconscious develops in childhood and contains dissociated memories of parental neglect, insensitivity, and outright abuse that are impossible the children to tolerate consciously. In Fairbairn's model, these dissociated memories protect developing children from recognizing how badly they are being treated and allow them to remain attached even to physically abusive parents. Attachment is paramount in Fairbairn's model, as he recognized that children are absolutely and unconditionally dependent on their parents. Kidnapped children who remain attached to their abusive captors despite opportunities to escape illustrate this intense dependency, even into adolescence. At the heart of Fairbairn's model is a structural theory that organizes actual relational events into three self-and-object pairs: one conscious pair (the central ego, which relates exclusively to the ideal object in the external world) and two mostly unconscious pairs (the child's antilibidinal ego, which relates exclusively to the rejecting parts of the object, and the child's libidinal ego, which relates exclusively to the exciting parts of the object). The two dissociated self-and-object pairs remain in the unconscious but can emerge and suddenly take over the individual's central ego. When they emerge, the "other" is misperceived as either an exciting or a rejecting object, thus turning these internal structures into a source of transferences and reenactments. Fairbairn's central defense mechanism, splitting, is the fast shift from central ego dominance to either the libidinal ego or the antilibidinal ego-a near perfect model of the borderline personality disorder. In this book, David Celani reviews Fairbairn's five foundational papers and outlines their application in the clinical setting. He discusses the four unconscious structures and offers the clinician concrete suggestions on how to recognize and respond to them effectively in the heat of the clinical interview. Incorporating decades of experience into his analysis, Celani emphasizes the internalization of the therapist as a new "good" object and devotes entire sections to the treatment of histrionic, obsessive, and borderline personality disorders.

Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory
Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory

Author: Jay R. Greenberg

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2013-12-01

Total Pages: 462

ISBN-13: 0674417003

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Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory provides a masterful overview of the central issue concerning psychoanalysts today: finding a way to deal in theoretical terms with the importance of the patient's relationships with other people. Just as disturbed and distorted relationships lie at the core of the patient's distress, so too does the relation between analyst and patient play a key role in the analytic process. All psychoanalytic theories recognize the clinical centrality of “object relations,” but much else about the concept is in dispute. In their ground-breaking exercise in comparative psychoanalysis, the authors offer a new way to understand the dramatic and confusing proliferation of approaches to object relations. The result is major clarification of the history of psychoanalysis and a reliable guide to the fundamental issues that unite and divide the field. Greenberg and Mitchell, both psychoanalysts in private practice in New York, locate much of the variation in the concept of object relations between two deeply divergent models of psychoanalysis: Freud's model, in which relations with others are determined by the individual's need to satisfy primary instinctual drives, and an alternative model, in which relationships are taken as primary. The authors then diagnose the history of disagreement about object relations as a product of competition between these disparate paradigms. Within this framework, Sullivan's interpersonal psychiatry and the British tradition of object relations theory, led by Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, and Guntrip, are shown to be united by their rejection of significant aspects of Freud's drive theory. In contrast, the American ego psychology of Hartmann, Jacobson, and Kernberg appears as an effort to enlarge the classical drive theory to accommodate information derived from the study of object relations. Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory offers a conceptual map of the most difficult terrain in psychoanalysis and a history of its most complex disputes. In exploring the counterpoint between different psychoanalytic schools and traditions, it provides a synthetic perspective that is a major contribution to the advance of psychoanalytic thought.

An Introduction to Object Relations
An Introduction to Object Relations

Author: Lavinia Gomez

Publisher: NYU Press

Published: 1997-03

Total Pages: 262

ISBN-13: 9780814730959

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What does it mean to be human? Object relations, the British- based development of classic Freudian psychoanalytic theory, is based on the belief that the human being is essentially social; the need for relationship is central to the definition of the self. Object relations theory forms the base of psychoanalysts' work, including Melanie Klein, D. W. Winnicott, W. R. D. Fairbairn, Michael Balint, H.J.S. Guntrip, and John Bowlby. Lavinia Gomez here provides an introduction to the main theories and applications of object relations. Through its detailed focus on internal and interpersonal unconscious processes, object relations can help psychotherapists, counselors and others in social service professions to understand and work with people who may otherwise seem irrational, unpredictable and baffling.

Object Relations Theories and Psychopathology
Object Relations Theories and Psychopathology

Author: Frank Summers

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-12-27

Total Pages: 528

ISBN-13: 1000966992

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Book is used on many psychoanalytic training courses, including in China, and new edition brings it up to date * Covers classic analysts such as Kohut and contemporary ones such as Kernberg * Offers a comprehensive guide to object relations theory and practice

Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition
Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition

Author: Graham S. Clarke

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-03-08

Total Pages: 787

ISBN-13: 0429913532

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Ronald Fairbairn developed a thoroughgoing object relations theory that became a foundation for modern clinical thought. This volume is homage to the enduring power of his thinking, and of his importance now and for the future of relational thinking within the social and human sciences. The book gathers an international group of therapists, analysts, psychiatrists, social commentators, and historians, who contend that Fairbairn's work extends powerfully beyond the therapeutic. They suggest that social, cultural, and historical dimensions can all be illuminated by his work. Object relations as a strand within psychoanalysis began with Freud and passed through Ferenczi and Rank, Balint, Suttie, and Klein, to come of age in Fairbairn's papers of the early 1940s. That there is still life in this line of thinking is illustrated by the essays in this collection and by the modern relational turn in psychoanalytic theory, the development of attachment theory, and the increasing recognition that there is 'no such thing as an ego' without context, without relationships, without a social milieu.

Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality
Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality

Author: W. R. D. Fairbairn

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-04-03

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1134842139

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First published in 1952, W.R.D. Fairbairn's Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality re-oriented psychoanalysis by centering human development on the infant's innate need for relationships, describing the process of splitting and the internal dynamic relationship between ego and object. His elegant theory is still a vital framework of psychoanalytic theory and practice, infant research, group relations and family therapy. This classic collection of papers, available for the first time in paperback, has a new introduction by David Scharff and Elinor Fairbairn Birtles which sets Fairbairn's highly original work in context, provides an overview of object relations theory, and traces modern developments, launched by Fairbairn's discoveries.

Individuality and Ideology in British Object Relations Theory
Individuality and Ideology in British Object Relations Theory

Author: Gal Gerson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2023-05-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780367761653

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Gal Gerson follows the the work of prominent object relations theorists like Bowlby, Fairbairn, Suttie and Winnicott to provide much-needed insight into how this school of psychoanalytic theory has impacted contemporary social and political life.

Object Relations Theory and Self Psychology in Soc
Object Relations Theory and Self Psychology in Soc

Author: Eda Goldstein

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2010-07-06

Total Pages: 329

ISBN-13: 1451603185

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Object Relations and Self Psychology are two leading schools of psychological thought discussed in social work classrooms and applied by practitioners to a variety of social work populations. Yet both groups have lacked a basic manual for teaching and reference -- until now. For them, Dr. Eda G. Goldstein's book fills a void on two fronts: Part I provides a readable, systematic, and comprehensive review of object relations and self psychology, while Part II gives readers a friendly, step-by-step description and illustration of basic treatment techniques. For educators, this textbook offers a learned and accessible discussion of the major concepts and terminology, treatment principles, and the relationship of object relations and self psychology to classic Freudian theory. Practitioners find within these pages treatment guidelines for such varied problems as illness and disability, the loss of a significant other, and such special problems as substance abuse, child maltreatment, and couple and family disruptions. In a single volume, Dr. Goldstein has met the complex challenges of education and clinical practice.