Object Relations Theory

Object relations theory is a psychodynamic theory within psychoanalytic psychology. The theory describes the process of developing a psyche as one grows in relation to others in the environment.

The theory suggests that people relate to others and situations in their adult lives as shaped by family experiences during infancy. For example, an adult who experienced neglect or abuse in infancy would expect similar behavior from others who remind them of the neglectful or abusive person from their past (often a parent). The infant's images of people and events turn into Objects in the subconscious that he or she carries into adulthood. People use these Objects to understand their current relationships and predict people's behavior.

The Self (or subject) relates to Objects in the unconscious to make sense of the people and events around a person. "Objects" are usually internalized images of one's mother or father. Objects can also be parts of a person, for instance an infant relating to the breast. Objects may be both real or things in one's inner world (one's internalized image of others). Object relationships are initially formed during early interactions with primary care givers. Later experiences can reshape these early patterns, but Objects often continue to exert a strong influence throughout life.

Otto Rank, Coiner of the term "pre-Oedipal," was the first to create a modern theory of "object relations" in the late 1920s. It was later independently formulated by Ronald Fairbairn in 1952, but the line of thought being referred to first emerged in 1917, beginning with Ferenczi and, later, Rank. Although first formulated in the 1920s by Otto Rank, object relations theory was extended in the 1940s and 50s by British psychologists Ronald Fairbairn, Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, Harry Guntrip, Scott Stuart, and others.

Objects are initially comprehended in the infant mind by their functions and are termed "part objects." The breast that feeds the hungry infant is the "good breast." The hungry infant that finds no breast is in relation to the "bad breast."

Internal objects are formed by the patterns emerging in one's repeated subjective experience of the care taking environment. These internalized images may or may not be accurate representations of the actual, external others. With a "good enough" "facilitating environment" part object functions eventually transform into a comprehension of whole objects. This corresponds with the ability to tolerate ambiguity, to see that both the "good" and the "bad" breast are a part of the same "mummy."