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Joining two usually distinct areas of psychoanalytic treatment, this volume explores the psychoanalytic theory of object relations and its application to the study of marital and family interaction. Freud's object relations model lends itself well to the study of internalized object relations and external personal relations. Integrating various psychoanalytic approaches as well as contributions of Piagetian scholars, this essay also incorporates general systems theory. The study covers the breakdown of marital relationships, narcissism of partners, separation and individuation of adolescent offspring, role typing, family communication, defense mechanisms, entrapping, and emotional processes. It concludes with a synthesis of marital and family object relations models.
Object Relations and the Family Process introduces the reader to the object relations model. It describes the process of acquiring object concepts of both permanence and libidinal strivings. The concept of libidinal object is then defined. An overview of the psychoanalytic theory of object relations is given and the intrapersonal and interpersonal spheres of object relations are described. The remainder of the book is devoted to the author's presentation of his hypothetical model. Both psychoanalysts and therapists will find this model a useful one.
List of contents
Preface
The Marital and Family Object Relations Model: A Conceptual Base
The Acquisition of the Concepts of Permanent and Libidinal Objects
Toward a Definition of the Object, Its Origins, and Its Functions
Object Relations Theory
Internal-External Polarities in Integration: The Intrapsychic and the Interpersonal
The Internal World of Object Relations
The Interpersonal Realm of Object Relations
Object Relations and Marital Partner Selection
Marital Object Relations in Process
Marital Object-Relational Breakdown
Patterns of Marital Object Relations: Dyadic Narcissism
Familial Object Relations and the Task of Separation-Individuation
Familial Object-Relational Role Typing
Object Relations and the Saliency of the Family Synergism
Familial Object Relations and the Defensive Menagerie
Familial Narcissistic Object Relations
Further Study of Familial Narcissistic Object Relations
Familial Object Relations and the Entrapping Emotional Process
A Synthesis of the Marital and Family Object Relations Model
Bibliography
Index
About the author
RANDALL S. KLEIN is in private practice of the psychoanalytic psychotheraphy of individuals, couples, and families in Sierra Vista, Arizona.
