Notes on the Relationship between Object Relations Theory and Self Psychology

Does an object relations theory exist in self psychology? Is self psychology a distinct theoretical system? One might also, with equal intellectual legitimacy, ask the question, “Does a self psychological perspective exist in theories of object relations?” I have addressed these questions at length elsewhere (Bacal, 1987, 1990; Bacal & Newman, 1990); now, the rich presentations of Drs. Ornstein and Basch provide opportunities for further discussion.

One tends to think about object relations theory as focusing on the relationship between the self and others, and the self's experience of the relationship is usually given only passing notice. However, anyone familiar with Kohut's work who attended the recent conference in Edinburgh honoring the work of Fairbairn, might have wondered from time to time whether he had wandered into a European conference on the psychology of the self. The position paper delivered by Sutherland at that conference, which identified the essence of Fairbairn's work, strikingly demonstrated how self psychological his work was, although almost everyone there simply recognized it as a fundamental theory of object relations. I wonder how many people at our conferences on self psychology hear views that they unquestioningly recognize as quintessentially self psychological but that are, in effect, inherent in the work of Fairbairn and other object relations theorists?

In fact, a number of object relations theorists tacitly (though inconsistently) recognized various aspects of what self psychology later conceptualized as the selfobject and selfobject relationships, and regarded them as centrally significant: Suttie, in his emphasis on the importance of companionship and the responsiveness of the object; Fairbairn, in his assertion that pleasure seeking is not a primary motivator, but that one is essentially moved by the need to establish