Later Views on Object Relations

• MARGARET MAHLER’S VIEW - Primarily concerned with the psychological birth (a process by which the child becomes an individual separate from his or her primary caregiver, an accomplishment that leads ultimately to a sense of identity) that takes place during the first 3 years of life. Based on observation of the behaviors of disturbed children interacting with their mothers.
• MARGARET MAHLER’S VIEW To achieve psychological birth and individuation:

  1. Normal Autism: From birth until age 3 or 4 weeks, a period of absolute primary narcissism as the newborn infant satisfies various needs within the all-powerful protective orbit of a mother
• 2. Normal Symbiosis: Begins around 4th or 5th week until 4th or 5th month; infant begins to recognize her primary caregiver and seeks a symbiotic relationship with her.
• 3. Separation-Individuation: Spans from 4th or 5th month until 30th to 36th month; children become psychologically separated from their mothers, achieve a sense of individuation, and begin to develop feelings of personal identity.
• The separation-individuation stage is divided into four substages:

  1. Differentiation: Marked by a bodily breaking away from mother-infant symbiotic orbit.
• 2. Practicing: Children easily distinguish their body from their mother’s, establish a specific bond with their mother, and begin to develop an autonomous ego.
• 3. Rapprochement: Children desire to bring their mother and themselves back together, both physically and psychologically; more likely to show separation anxiety.
• 4. Libidinal object constancy: Children must develop a constant inner representation of their mother so that they can tolerate being physically separate from her.
• HEINZ KOHUT’S VIEW - Emphasized the process by which the self evolves from a vague and undifferentiated image to a clear and precise sense of individual identity.
• Heinz-Kohut focused on early mother-child relationship as the key to understanding later development.
• Heinz Kohut says that human relations, not instinctual drives, are at the core of human personality
• HEINZ KOHUT’S VIEW - Infants need adult caregivers to satisfy both physical and psychological needs, and adults (or self-objects) treat infants as if they have a sense of self.
• Heinz Kohut - Through the process of empathic interaction, the infant takes in the self-object’s responses that eventually form the building blocks of the self
• HEINZ KOHUT’S VIEW - infants are naturally narcissistic.

  1. Grandiose-exhibitionistic self: Infant relates to a mirroring selfobject who reflects approval of his behavior; “If others see me as perfect, then I am perfect”.
  2. Idealized parent image: Infant adopts the attitude “You are perfect, but I am part of you”. Both narcissistic self-images are necessary for healthy personality development; both, however, must change as the child grows older
• JOHN BOWLBY’S ATTACHMENT THEORY - Argued that object-relations theory could be integrated with an evolutionary perspective. Emphasized that childhood attachments are crucial to later development as based on his observations on animals and humans as they go through a clear sequence of reactions when separated from their primary caregivers.
• JOHN BOWLBY’S ATTACHMENT THEORY Stages of Separation Anxiety

  1. Protest Stage: Infants cry when the caregiver is out of sight, resist soothing by other people, and search for their caregiver.
• Bowlby: 2. Despair Stage: As separation continues, infants become quiet, sad, passive, and apathetic.
• Bowlby: 3. Detachment Stage: Infants become emotionally detached from other people, including their caregivers; even if the caregiver returns, they will disregard and avoid her.
• JOHN BOWLBY’S ATTACHMENT THEORY - Wrote a trilogy titled Attachment and Loss.

  
  

  Assumed that a responsive and accessible caregiver (usually the mother) must create a secure base for the child.

  
  

  Assumed that a bonding relationship (or a lack thereof) becomes internalized and serves as a mental working model on which future friendships and love relationships are built
• MARY AINSWORTH AND THE STRANGE SITUATION - Developed a technique with her associates that measures the type of attachment styles that exist between caregiver and infant.
• Secure 70% - children given a positive working model. caregiver is emotionally available and sensitive.
• Avoidant 20% - children's model is unworthy and unacceptable. caregiver is rejecting.
• Resistant 10% - negative self-image and exaggerate emotional responses to gain attention. caregiver is inconsistent.
• • Anxious-avoidant attachment: Anxiously attached children are wary of strangers, exhibit great distress when a parent leaves, but are not comforted by a parent's return.
• • Anxious-resistant attachment: Avoidantly attached children show little preference for parents over strangers and seek little comfort from their caregivers.