History of Object Relations Theory

• The history of the concept "object" (the first object in the unconscious is based on the mother) in psychoanalysis will be reviewed with a focus on the emergence of Object Relations Theory from classical drive-based psychoanalytic theory.

• The role of parental empathic failures in the development of the Splitting Defense will be described: the development of internal structures and the creation of an individual unconscious based on parental failures that were too intolerable and disruptive to tolerate consciously, and too structure-building to be completely dissociated.
• A review of W.R.D. Fairbairn's work: five clinical papers with emphasis on clinical applications.
• The actions and dynamics of the unconscious structures will be described: transferences and reenactments that result when the client distorts external reality with extreme views of objects and excessive emotionality.
• The development of the Moral Defense, and its use by the child to keep the illusion of attachment to good objects intact will be described.
• The role of repression in the inner world will be described.

• The development of a clinical narrative will be described with the patient with an emphasis on discovering:
  1. the quality of the dependency relationship experienced with the original objects (parents),
  2. the patient's defensive explanation for their plight and
  3. understanding enactments within the clinical dyad that reveal the patterns in their relational unconscious. Using a client's acting out in therapy to understand the original family dynamic.
• Understanding and using the power of the Framework as an emotional container for the patient's productions will be discussed.
• Several typical forms of transference based on the patient's unconscious structures will be described.
   

• The Borderline Personality will be described using the defense mechanism of splitting as the basic source of shifting transferences and emotional outbursts.
• The family constellations that produce the Borderline Personality Disorder will be described including exposure of the child to overwhelming parental aggression and continuous empathic failures.
• The skills and strategies that are required to contain and work with this patient population in psychotherapy will be discussed.
• Ego Strengthening techniques will be described, that will gradually allow the patient to let go of their attachment to the Bad Object, and use the therapist as a new, Good Object to organize their ego structure.

• Typical family patterns that produce the  obsessive including parental use of Mystification to cover up abuse and neglect will be described.
• The damage done to the child's central ego by parental use of  self righteous criticism of the child's normal and reasonable behaviors will be discussed.
• The development of powerful condemning internal structures that are enacted in passive aggressive transferences and excoriation of self and others will be emphasized.

The Histrionic Personality Disorder
 

• Typical family constellations that produce Histrionic Personality Disorders, including parental rejection, the emphasis of sexuality and the role of unmet developmental needs will be described.
• The content and dynamic function of the internalized self and object structures and the translation of these structures into relational patterns and transference configurations will be discussed.
• Therapeutic strategies that have impact on the histrionic personality disorder including management of the frame and analysis of the transference will be described.