Definition
Object relations theory refers to any of the psychoanalytic theories that understand emotional disturbance as a product of the child’s early developmental relationships and how those relationships are internalized. The source of pathology is held to lie in the destructive qualities of those early object relationships. The therapeutic process is conducted by illuminating the early internalized images and seeing how they play out in the therapeutic relationship and the process in general. In addition, emphasis is placed on providing the type of relationship the patient never had as well as making conscious the object relational patterns. Thus, the relationship formed between the patient and therapist is given at least as much weight as the interpretation of the patient’s experience in the therapeutic action of psychoanalytic therapy.
Introduction
Object relations theories were born from ego psychology. As psychoanalysis began to see the primary importance of the ego in...
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Summers, F. (2017). Object Relations Theory. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_1404-1
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