Object Relations

Integrated Child & Adult Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy (ICAPP)
2020-21, 2nd Block — Mondays, 6:30-7:45pm
Joanne della Penta, ATR-BC LMHC

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Introduction

Welcome! We are excited to learn together about the expansion of psychoanalytic thought after Freud. We’ll move from the Freudian movement, across the sea to Scotland with Fairbairn, then locate ourselves in London where Melanie Klein articulated her theoretical expansion on Freud, and applied the method to children. She brings us directly into the primitive elements of the psyche. The battles between the Anna Freudians and the Melanie Kleinians, “controversial discussions,” yielded a “Middle School” – Winnicott, Bowlby, Sharp, and Mahler. The middle school was the roots for Bowlby’s followers, Ainsworth and Main, and the origins of attachment theory. We’ll move into more contemporary object relations theory with Bion, Meltzer, and Ogden. We are eager to work as a strong learning community as we all navigate the ups and downs of Zoom education, so please speak up! Tell us how it is for you, what you want more or less of, and how we can facilitate learning in this strange historical time.

Learning Objectives

Participants will:

1. define the key concepts of object relations theory: splitting, good/bad objects, paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions, projective identification, holding, container/contained, false self vs true self, good enough mother/father/caregiver, transitional object, transitional phenomenon.
2. identify transference – countertransference dynamics in their clinical practice, including the projective identification process in the therapeutic dyad.
3. demonstrate their capacity to use their countertransference experiences as a means to deeper understanding of their patient.

November 16, 2020 — Overview and emergence of object relations theory

[15 pages]

We start with an overview of the path we’ll be taking as Freud’s thinking expanded and flourished into the approach called “object relations theory.” Eigen takes a hopeful poetic tone for an overview.

Meltzer, D. (1981). The Kleinian Expansion of Freud’s Metapsychology. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 62:177-185.

Eigen, M. (2008). Primary Aloneness. Psychoanal. Persp., 5(2):63-68.