Lesson 5

• The object relations theory of Melanie Klein was built on careful observations of young children.
• In contrast to Freud, who emphasized the first 4–6 years of life, Klein stressed the importance of the first 4–6 months after birth.
• According to Klein, the child’s relation to the breast is fundamental and serves as a prototype for later relations to whole objects, such as mother and father.
• The very early tendency of infants to relate to partial objects gives their experiences an unrealistic or fantasy-like quality that affects all later interpersonal relations.
• Klein’s ideas tend to shift the focus of psychoanalytic theory from organically based stages of development to the role of early fantasy in the formation of interpersonal relationships.
• Melanie Klein was born on March 30, 1882, in Vienna, Austria, as the youngest of four children born to Dr. Moriz Reizes and his second wife, Libussa Deutsch Reizes.
• Klein believed that her birth was unplanned, leading to feelings of being rejected by her parents.
• Klein grew up in a family that was neither proreligious nor antireligious.
• Her father, a struggling physician, ended up as a dental assistant, while her mother, despite her fear of snakes, ran a shop selling plants and reptiles.
• Despite her father's limited income, Klein aspired to become a physician.
• Klein felt neglected by her elderly father, whom she saw as cold and distant, and although she loved and idolized her mother, she felt suffocated by her.
• Klein had a special fondness for her older sister Sidonie, who taught her arithmetic and reading.
• Unfortunately, when Melanie was 4 years old, Sidonie died.
• After her sister's death, Klein developed a deep attachment to her brother, Emmanuel, who became her confidant.
• Klein idolized her brother, and this infatuation may have contributed to her later difficulties in relating to men.
• At 18, her father died followed by her beloved brother 2 years after.
• In mourning, Klein married Arthur Klein, a close friend of Emmanuel, and later regretted that this marriage at age 21 hindered her dream of becoming a physician.
• Ambivalent feelings towards loved ones are common, but conscious ambivalence doesn't capture the essence of the paranoid-schizoid position.
• At the 5th or 6th month, an infant begins to view external objects as whole and recognizes the existence of good and bad in the same person.
• Projection is a defense mechanism used by infants to remove both good and bad objects, imagining their feelings and impulses as external entities, to alleviate anxiety about internal forces causing destruction.
• Klein (1955) suggested that, from very early infancy, children adopt several psychic defense mechanisms to protect their ego against the anxiety aroused by their own destructive fantasies.
• Introjected objects are children's fantasies, often depicting their mother as constantly present within their body, despite the fact that the real mother is not always present.
• Introjection, one of Klein's concepts, suggests that infants fantasize about incorporating their experiences with external objects, such as the mother's breast, into their bodies.
• Infants' mature ego realizes it cannot protect the mother, leading to guilt and a depressive position.
• Infants' biological predisposition to value nourishment and life instincts leads to ambivalent feelings towards a single person, a concept similar to transference feelings experienced by therapy patients, as they do not use language to identify good and bad breasts.
• Fearing the mother's loss, infants desire to protect her from destructive impulses.
• Depressive children understand their mother as both loved and hated, remorse past destructive actions, and feel empathy for her, enhancing their future interpersonal relationships and fostering better relationships.
• Adults adopt the paranoid-schizoid position in a primitive, unconscious way, experiencing themselves as passive objects or projecting their unconscious paranoid feelings onto others to avoid destruction or to view themselves as empty or worthless.
• Projection allows people to attribute their subjective opinions to others, allowing them to believe their own feelings are true, as seen in infants and adults who attribute their goodness to nurturing breasts.
• Klein did not have a happy marriage; she dreaded sex and abhorred pregnancy.
• Under pressure of ambivalence, conflict and guilt, the patient often splits the figure of the analyst, then the analyst may at certain moments be loved, at other moments hated.
• Klein trained her son according to Freudian principles and began to psychoanalyze Erich from the time he was very young.
• Klein also attempted to analyze Melitta and Hans, both of whom eventually went to other analysts.
• Melitta, who became a psychoanalyst, was analyzed by Karen - Horney as well as by others.
• The infant's reaction to the stranger's return is crucial for determining the attachment style.
• Attachment theory, initially focusing on parent-child relationships, has been extensively studied in adult relationships, particularly romantic ones.
• Klein's theory suggests that children can have both homosexual and heterosexual relationships with both parents, with girls and boys experiencing the Oedipus complex differently.
• To foster negative transference and aggressive fantasies, Klein provided each child with various toys and substituted play therapy for Freudian dream analysis and free association.
• A study at York University found that abuse survivors with malevolent and less emotionally invested relationships were correlated with greater symptoms of PTSD and lower self-esteem.
• Ainsworth's research showed that approximately 60% of American infants show a secure attachment, with a happy and confident infant.