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I HAVE CHOSEN TO DISCUSS THE TOPIC OF DISTURBANCES IN OBJECT representation for two reasons:
1I was surprised to discover this disorder in my patients and I wondered why I had not discovered it earlier in the analysis of some patients. Presenting my clinical material is an invitation to stimulate a discussion about this topic in order to find whether others have had similar clinical experiences.
2The data which I shall present stem from the analysis of adults. Since the history of this disorder indicates that it started early in childhood, one has to pose the question: How can we obtain information of this form of disturbed object representation during childhood?
I do not need to review the significance of object relations in psychoanalysis or the recent attention to object and self representations. The data from the study of the first years of life which led to a clearer outline of the development of the dyadic and triadic interrelationship between infant and objects are well known. Many explanations have been given of those factors which contribute to the evolvement of an inner representational world. For our topic it may be useful to remind us that the object representational world and the inner psychic life are not synonymous, and that our understanding of the establishment of a representational