Object Relations in Clinical Psychoanalysis1

Harold Blum introduced the panel noting that, while object relations has a central role in psychoanalysis, the many roles and meanings of object and object relations are diverse, varying among different analytic frameworks. Controversies abound. The concept of the object as ‘object of the drive’ has been modified and expanded in the current theoretical pluralism of psychoanalysis. Different concepts of object, e.g. drive-object, part object, transitional object, narcissistic object, new object and external real objects, have advanced within different analytic frameworks. In developmental theory object relations refers to the importance of the primary caregiver-infant relationship, bonding, attachment, communication, and identification. In the theory of technique, object-relations has contributed to the change to a two-person analytic process evolving within an ever-present transference-counter transference field which has transformed classical, traditional views of clinical psychoanalysis. Do most psychoanalysts work today with a two-person model, a one-person model, or a one- and a two-person model? Object relations theories have importantly contributed to current interest in intersubjective and interpersonal effects, unconscious communication, projective identification, and other forms of bilateral analyst-patient influence in analytic work. Does the concept of technical neutrality need further inquiry and refinement? Is transference based primarily on unconscious childhood fantasy or is it co-constructed in the present related to the co-creation of an analytic narrative? What are the boundaries of the analyst's self-disclosure; does it benefit the analyst, the patient, or the analytic process? The new analytic object relationship, especially with very disturbed patients, is now accepted with interpretation as important in therapeutic action.

Daniel Widlöcher presented Object relations and the figure in the fantasy. He indicated that he does not keep the term of ob