Stages and Processes in the Development of Early Object Relations and their Associated Pathologies

In its attempt to understand and classify the psychological disorders of childhood, taking into account the many psychosomatic, developmental, and psychosocial factors which may be operative, the Group for the Advancement of Psychiatry (1966) observes that 'no classification can as yet be made of childhood psychological disorders in relation to specific pathogenic characteristics of the parent-child relationship' (p. 200).

Although this may be true with respect to certain child rearing behaviours, we can say that we most certainly can make such a classification if we have as our focus the development of object relations along the continuum from the normal autism at birth, through the process of attachment to the mothering object, and from this point, through the process of psychological individuation from the object and establishment of the self as a separate, yet related, individual. It is the contention of this paper that specific kinds of disturbances will be associated with either maternal failure and/or inability of the child to respond to normal mothering at any of these developmental stages or during the transitional processes which lead from one stage to the next.

The ego psychologists, as represented by Hartmann, define the ego in terms of its functions. These are (Beres, 1956): (1) relation to reality, (2) regulation and control of instinctual drives, (3) object relations, (4) thought processes, (5) defence functions, (6) autonomous functions, and (7) synthetic function.

What is not taken into consideration here is the essentially hierarchical aspect of these functions. The synthetic function seems most clearly related to the innate competency of the organism itself, its ability to assimilate, organize and integrate its experiences from the very start. Differences in the extent of this innate competency may well explain why one child can master, at least relatively successfully, unfavourable environmental factors, while another child cannot. When the ab