Object relations theory

Object relations theory is a school of thought in psychoanalytic theory and psychoanalysis centered around theories of stages of ego development. Its concerns include the relation of the psyche to others in childhood and the exploration of relationships between external people, as well as internal images and the relations found in them. Thinkers of the school maintain that the infant's relationship with the mother primarily determines the formation of its personality in adult life. Particularly, attachment is the bedrock of the development of the self or the psychic organization that creates the sense of identity. While its groundwork derives from theories of development of the ego in Freudian psychodynamics, object relations theory does not place emphasis on the role of biological drives in the formation of personality in adulthood. Thinkers of the school instead suggest that the way people relate to others and situations in their adult lives is shaped by family experiences during infancy; an adult who experienced neglect or abuse in infancy expects similar behavior from others who, through transference, remind them of the neglectful or abusive parent from their past. These patterns of the behavior of people become repeated images of the events, and eventually turn into objects in the unconscious that the self carries into adulthood to be used in the unconscious to predict people's behavior in their social relationships and interactions. The first "object" in an individual is usually an internalized image of the mother. Internal objects are formed by the patterns in one's experience of being taken care of as a baby, which may or may not be accurate representations of the actual, external caretakers. Objects are usually internalized images of one's mother, father, or primary caregiver, although they could also consist of parts of a person such as an infant relating to the breast or things in one's inner world (one's internalized image of others). Later experiences can reshape these early patterns, but objects often continue to exert a strong influence throughout life.

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