Schools and Movements
Object Relations Theory
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Object relations theory is a school of psychoanalytic thought that reconceives personality around a person's relationships with internalized images of others, called objects, rather than around the discharge of biological drives. Melanie Klein's papers on early child development in the 1930s and 1940s established its core concepts of splitting and the paranoid-schizoid and depressive positions; Ronald Fairbairn's 1952 Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality first formulated it as a systematic theory built on relationships rather than libido; and Donald Winnicott extended it with the transitional object and the good enough mother. The school holds that an infant's relationship with its mother, not the satisfaction of biological drives, primarily shapes adult personality.
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Founded YearNo single founding moment: Sandor Ferenczi's 1917 papers first explored internalized relationships, Melanie Klein's child-analytic work of the 1930s and 1940s built its core content, and Ronald Fairbairn's 1952 book was the first to formulate a systematic object-relations theory of personality. 1952 is recorded here as the year the theory was first named and systematized, not as the whole school's origin. Central QuestionHow does an infant's earliest relationship with its caregiver become internalized as a mental representation, an object, that structures personality, emotion and relationships throughout life? 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
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1. Wikipedia: Object Relations Theory
Wikimedia FoundationIntroductionQuote, Introduction
Adherents to this school of thought maintain that the infant's relationship with the mother primarily determines the formation of their personality in adult life.
1. Wikipedia: Object Relations Theory
Wikimedia FoundationHistory sectionQuote, History section
The initial line of thought emerged in 1917 with Sandor Ferenczi. Subsequently, early in the 1930s, Harry Stack Sullivan, established what is known as interpersonal theory. British psychologists Melanie Klein, Donald Winnicott, and Harry Guntrip extended object relations theory during the 1940s and 1950s. In 1952, Ronald Fairbairn formulated his theory of object relations.
Wikipedia: Melanie Klein
Wikimedia FoundationFounded By: Melanie Klein, IntroductionQuote, Founded By: Melanie Klein, Introduction
She was the primary figure in the development of object relations theory.
Wikipedia: Ronald Fairbairn
Wikimedia FoundationFounded By: Ronald Fairbairn, IntroductionQuote, Founded By: Ronald Fairbairn, Introduction
a central figure in the development of the object relations theory of psychoanalysis
Wikipedia: Donald Winnicott
Wikimedia FoundationFounded By: Donald Winnicott, IntroductionQuote, Founded By: Donald Winnicott, Introduction
was especially influential in the field of object relations theory and developmental psychology
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