Object Relation Theory - Melanie Klein

Object relations theory in psychoanalytic psychology is the process of developing a psyche in relation to others in the environment during childhood.

1. Life is a combination of: Sunshine and Rain Sweet and sour Happiness and Sadness Life and Death Love and Betrayal

2. Melanie Reizes Klein Object Relation Theory

3. Melanie Reizes Klein Was born March 30, 1882, in Vienna Austria. The youngest of four children born to Dr. Moriz Reizes and his second wife, Libussa Deutsch Reizes. Klein believe that her birth was unplanned- a belief that led to feelings of being rejected by her parents. She grew up in a family that was neither proreligious nor antireligious.

4. During her childhood, s he observed that her both parents working at jobs they did not enjoy. Her father was a physician who struggled to make a living in medicine and eventually was related to working as dental assistant. Her mother ran a shop selling plants and reptiles. Despite her father’s meager income as a doctor, she inspired to become a physician. Klein’s Family

5. She felt neglected by her elderly father, whom she saw cold and distant, and although she loved and idolized her mother, she felt suffocated by her. Always felt neglected and devastated when her elder sister died whom she always idolized On her 18 th year another elder brother named Emmanuel died. Klein’s Family

6. Immediately after her brother’s death, she got married at the age of 21 to an engineer named Arthur Klein whom she believed to have been preventing her to pursue medical studies. Her marriage to Arthur produced three children : 1. Melitta born in 1904 2. Hans born in 1907 3. Erich born in 1909 Klein’s Family Life Melanie Arthur

7. Hans Melitta Melanie

8. Klein met Sandor Ferenczi , a member of Freud’s inner circle and the person who introduced her into the world of psychoanalysis. When her mother died, Klein became depressed and entered analysis with Ferenczi . She was deeply taken by Psychoanalysis. She trained her son according to Freudian principles. As part of the program she psychoanalyzes her children. Klein’s Family and Career Life Melanie Sandor

9. Melitta , who became a psychoanalyst, was analyzed by Karen Horney. Unfortunately , Klein did not have a happy marriage; she dreaded sex and abhorred pregnancy. Klein separated from her husband in 1919 but did not obtain a divorce for several years. Klein’s Family and Career Life Melita

10. After the separation, she established a psychoanalytic practice in Berlin and made her first contributions to the psychoanalytic literature with a paper dealing with her analysis of Erich. Not completely satisfied with her own analysis by Ferenczi , she ended the relationship and began an analysis with Karl Abraham (member of Freud’s inner circle). After 14 months Abraham died. Klein’s Career Life Melanie Karl

11. At this point of her life, Klein decided to begin a self-analysis. In 1919, psychoanalyst including Freud, based their theories of child development. From Berlin she moved to London to avoid conflicts with preexisting practice in Psychoanalysis. Although she claimed to practice Freudian psychology, Sigmund and Anna Freud did not agree with her emphasis on child psychoanalysis. Klein’s Career Life

12. In 1934, Klein’s older son, Hans was killed in a fall. Mellita , w ho had recently moved to London, maintained that her brother had committed suicide, and she blamed her mother for his death. Melitta began analysis with Edward Glover , one of Klein’s rivals in British Society. Klein and her daughter then became professionally antagonistic and Mellitta maintained her animosity even after her mother’s death (In 1960, due to cancer ). Klein’s Career Life

13. In 1946, the British Society accepted three training procedures , Traditional one of Melanie Klein Advocated by Anna Freud A middle group that accepted neither training school but was more eclectic in its approach. Klein’s Career Life Melanie and Anna Freud

14. Was based on careful observations of infants. While Freud focused on the first 4 to 6 years, Klein emphasizes the importance of 4 to 6 months after birth. Its importance of certain objects like breasts, vagina, and penis and so on to be of great impact on an infants. Klein stresses that the child’s relation to the breast is considered to be a prototype for later relationships towards his/her parents and other individuals. What is Object Relation Theory?

15. Klein did not believe the claim that humans were born as a black state, but already inherited some predispositions to reduce anxiety by conflicts between life and death instincts. Fantasies/Phantasies – Infants at birth already possesses a fantasy about life. They already have their unconscious images of “good” and “bad”. Objects- Drives or instincts must have an object. This is where exerted and applied. Klein believed that an infant relates there drives to external objects both in fantasy and reality. Psychic Life of infants

16. Infants are always in between the struggle of good and bad, life and death, love and hate, creativity and destruction. Klein chose to use the term “positions” rather than “stages of development” to indicate the tendency for humans to go back and forth. Different Positions

17. Develop during the first 3 or 4 months of life. A way of organizing experiences that includes both paranoid feelings of being persecuted and a splitting of internal and external objects into the good and the bad. The ego’s perception of external world is subjective and fantastic rather than objective and real. Infants have a biological predisposition to attach a positive value to nourishment and the life instinct. Paranoid-Schizoid Position

18. The infant then identifies the source as an object of drive or instinct which he desires to be in control with. Persecutory Breast- Which provide frustrations to an infant and are incapable of providing love, care and comfort. This allows the child to develop the urge to destroy it by biting tearing or even annihilating it. Ideal breast- this breast provides nourishment and care, together with love, comfort and gratification where infant aims to devour and harbor. Paranoid-Schizoid Position

19. Begins to surface by the age of 5-6 months when an infant can already can already view an object as incorporated both good and bad feelings. Where are infant feels the anxiety of losing a loved object accompanied by the sense of guilt for wanting to destroy that same object. Infant realizes that his/her mother might leave her so he begins to protect her. Depressive Position

20. Introjection infants fantasize taking into their body these perceptions and experiences that they had with the external object, originally the mother’s breast. When good objects were introjected it helps them protect their ego from anxiety , however when bad objects were the ones introjected they become internal persecutors. Psychic Mechanis m

21. Projection infants projects one’s own feelings and impulses actually resides in another person and not within them. Children usually projects good and bad images towards their parents. Psychic Mechanis m

22. Splitting It enables them to see the positive and negative side of themselves or others. It may be both beneficial and destructive since it may recognize the good me and the bad me. Psychic Mechanis m

23. Projective Identification When an infant projects an undesirable object onto another person and eventually introjects them back to themselves in a distorted form. It usually exerts a powerful influence on adult interpersonal relationship. Psychic Mechanism

24. Ego Superego Oedipus Complex Three Important Internalizations

25. Ego Unlike Freud who claims that Id dominates a child’s unconscious, Klein believed that during this stage, ego though weak and unorganized can already feel anxiety and is strong enough to use different mechanism. The ego matures through the first experience of feeding providing him/her with love and security. The ego can also split distinctions between good and bad breast and as well as objects and expectations. Three Important Internalizations

26. Superego Klein claims that superego emerges much earlier in life, not as result of revolved Oedipus complex and is much more harsh and cruel. Klein further believes that early superego produces not guilt but terror to infants. Klein also insisted that superego goes along with the development of the Oedipus complex and provides realistic guilt the resolution of the complex. Three Important Internalizations

27. Oedipus Complex Even though Klein claims that her idea of the Oedipus complex is an extension of Freud’s many distinct characteristics where recognizable: It begins at much eelier time of life Significant part of it represents the child’s fear of retaliation from his/her parents Childs retention of positive feelings towards both parents. It enables children to recognize between good and bad. Three Important Internalizations

28. Klein developed this play therapy technique as a substitute f or Freud’s dream analysis and free association, believing that children may express their unconscious wishes through toys and play things. Klein’s therapy is to reduce the depressive anxieties and persecutory fears and encourages her patients to re-experience early emotions and fantasies and help them identify between reality and fantasy, conscious and unconscious. How Klein conducts her Psychotherapy?

29. “M ” is for the million things she gave us, “O” means only that she’s growing old, “T” is for the tears she shed to save us, “H ” is for her heart of purest gold, “E” is for her eyes , with love-light shining, “R” means right , and right she’ll always be.

30. “A mother’s love will never end. It is there from beginning to end .”

31. Thank you very much!