Back to Table of Contents
are projected into the object, leads to a strong confusion between the self and the object, which also comes to stand for the self” (Klein, 1975, p 192.).
IV. FURTHER GLOBALLY INFLUENTIAL DEVELOPMENTS OF THE CONCEPT: BRITISH OBJECT RELATIONS MIDDLE SCHOOL AND POSTFREUDIAN STRUCTURAL THEORY
Overall, the concept of Self gains more explicit articulation mainly in post-Freudian psychoanalysis. In Europe, the concept of Self is seen as primarily originating in the conceptualization of British Middle School Object Relations Theories. In North America, where various conceptualizations of self and object relations are considered an aspect of all psychoanalytic conceptualizations, the next step in development of the concept of Self occurs within the Post-Freudian developments of the Structural theory/Ego Psychology. In both continents, concomitant developments related to variously conceptualized child observation studies, infant research and the psychoanalysis of children and adolescents are considered relevant, as is the dynamic work with serious pathologies. These are followed in the chapters below, as they pertain to specific authors (Jacobson, Mahler and others), in a chapter on Child and Adolescent Psychoanalysis, where their influence comes into fruition within the context of further and contemporary developments in Europe. IV. A. Self in British ‘Middle School’ Object Relations Perspectives Subsequent object relations theorists, like Fairbairn (1952, 1954, 1963) and Winnicott (1960, 1965), deemphasized the centrality of drives, allowing for a more cohesive and totalistic concept of the self in its various forms to emerge from the multitude of interpersonal experiences that the infant participates in over time. Psychoanalysis was thus able to explicate the formation of various forms of the self that employ others to shape it and encourage its further development. Ronald Fairbairn Fairbairn (1952, 1963) does not use in his psychoanalytic theory directly the word self but he uses “ego”, as Freud employed “das Ich” in his pre-structural writings to designate the self. John Sutherland (1994) confirms that:” Fairbairn accepted that ‘self’ is a more appropriate term in most of his considerations since it refers to the whole from which sub-selves are spilt off. The ego is useful for the central self, that is, the dominant part of the self that incorporates the main purposes and goals of the individual in his relationships with the outer world and with which consciousness is usually associated” (p. 21). Main features of the self in Fairbairn’s structural theory are as follows:
752
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online