Internalization and Object Relations

AFUNDAMENTAL ELEMENT in the theory of object relations has to do with the supposition that the quality of object relations influences and gives rise to internal modifications within the experiencing subject. This supposition draws particular emphasis in the object relations perspective on development, but also finds its appropriate role in the understanding of ongoing experience, especially the experience of both patient and analyst in the analytic interaction. This aspect of the theory raises the problem of the relation between what is internal and what is external, or, in other terms, the relation between the self and its objects. The problem we are focusing on is internalization in psychoanalytic theory and specifically in reference to object relations theory.

It is well to remind ourselves at the beginning of such a discussion that the disjunction on which our questioning is focused is that between self and object. Ever since Hartmann's (1950) clarification of the distinction between self and ego, it must be regarded as inaccurate to refer relations or differentiations between the self and its objects to the ego. Hartmann distinguished clearly between the ego as an organized system of structures and functions at the core of the epersonality, and the self as an intersystemic unit which served as