Object Relations Theory: An Introduction

OBJECT RELATIONS THEORY" is a subject that has become especially associated with direct observations on preoedipal phases of the mother-child unit. As such, it brings many analysts whose impressions of this early period are derived largely from reconstructions during the treatment of adults to borderlines beyond which they have been reluctant to venture. There are the well-known difficulties in verifying memories and reconstructions about very early life, as well as in correlating them with the data of direct observation. Conversely, object relations observers find it increasingly difficult to follow the child's development as he grows older or to crossmatch their data with inferences drawn from what analysts observe clinically.

Such mutual uncertainties create a barrier which has been intensified, especially among American analysts, by the prominence of Kleinians and nonanalysts in the field of object relations. Nevertheless, a solid core of interest in child development has inevitably characterized the history of psychoanalysis, and may be credited with inspiring many of the object relations studies. Their common matrix cannot be dissolved, fed as it is by child analysis and other outgrowths