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3. For Fairbairn, generally speaking “psychology may be said to resolve itself into a study of the relationships of the individual to his [external] objects, whilst, in similar terms, psychopathology may be said to resolve itself more specifically into a study of the relationships of the ego to its internalized objects” (1943: 60; cf. also 1941). Again, the departure from classical theory is evident in the fact that the object-relations perspective does not proceed along the classically defined trajectory from drive, through fantasy, to conflict and repression; but rather, introduces an alternative sequence and source of conflict. The process of maturation itself constitutes the core conflict, where the developmental tendency towards maturity comes up against a regressive tendency in the attachment to infantile dependence (1941: 38). Whereas the psychopathological model of classical theory is based on the idea of regression to different stages of libidinal development, Fairbairn focuses instead on the various defensive manoeuvres (‘techniques’) deployed during the process of maturation. The theory of psychopathology is set out from early on in terms of two ‘great tragedies’ attendant on the splitting of the ego, concerning (i) individuals who feel their love to be destructive of those they love and (ii) those who become subject to a compulsion to hate and be hated in the process of driving their libidinal objects away (1940: 26). In particular, pathological states and mechanisms of defence are considered in terms of object-relationships at different developmental stages and phases, including, early and late oral fixations: “the emotional conflict which arises in relation to object-relationships during the early oral phase takes the form of the alternative, ‘to suck or not to suck’, i.e. ‘to love or not to love’…the conflict which characterizes the late oral phase resolves itself into the alternative, ‘to suck or to bite’, i.e. ‘to love or to hate’” (1941: 49). The former characterizes the schizoid state; the latter, the depressive state. The defining problem for the individual is how to love without destroying by love or by hate, respectively. The schizoid dilemma is marked by futility; the child feels his love is at fault. By contrast, the depressive is subject to ambivalence and guilt, where it is felt that hate is to blame. The revised psychopathology from 1941 outlines a typology based on four ‘techniques’, understood as ways of manipulating the ‘accepted’ and ‘rejected’ objects formed in the course of the schizoid position. The nature of the object-relationships established during the stage of infantile dependence determines which of the four techniques is employed, or the extent to which each is employed, during the transitional stage between infantile and mature dependence. The typology comprises: (i) obsessional neurosis, in which both the accepted and the rejected object are internalized; (ii) the paranoid technique, in which the accepted object is internalized, and the rejected object is externalized; (iii) the hysterical defence, in which the accepted object is externalized, and the rejected is internalized; and (iv) the phobic position, in which both the accepted and rejected object are externalized (1941: 46). The splitting of the ego is seen as the underlying factor in all psychopathology. Thus, the aetiological distinction based on defences against specific instinctual urges (sucking, biting) gives place to a thoroughgoing object-relations theory of psychopathology. The theoretical and clinical emphasis of Fairbairn’s revised model of psychoanalysis is evident above all in his contention that patients who are diagnosed ‘depressive’ are often ‘schizoid’ in character; the
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