Psicólogo – Nivaldo Júnior (CRP 09/016675)

Overview: Objects Relations Theory Chapter I, Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena.

Ambivalence fosters the development of the unconditional love of both, mother and children. However, there’s a mechanism that keeps the perception of the bad object unrevealed, as an unconscious thinking.

In the beginning, the baby makes no symbolic difference between his mother and himself. So, his body is psychologically conceived as a part of his mother. As his conception increases, the conception of a “self” and a “non-self” is created. Towards this “non-self”, the baby directs his aggressive impulses, perceiving the other as a threat.

This perception of the other as a threat is a result of experiences related to the bad object as a source of hate and angry feelings, because the baby’s desires were not totally satisfied.

It’s a kind of projection that returns in several mental conditions, for instance, in cases associated with phobia, social phobia, panic disorder, paranoia, etc.

When the mother interrupts her milk flow, the baby loses his source of feeding. The breast that fed him is associated with a source of love and life. When the baby isn’t fed, he feels anxious about life, experiencing something related to the death impulses.

The experience of losing the breast is similar to the castration complex. So, the bad object, which is death, the aggressive impulses, returns to provoke instability in his mind.

For Winnicott, the mother has to survive the destructive impulses of the child. This way, the baby has to understand that all expressions that he makes are safe to do.

So, facial expressions, mouth sounds, emotions, feelings, behaviors, all of these are part of his life experiences that foster a lot of learning needed for his psychological development.

Through the factors of identification, the child projects psychological contents, such as thoughts and emotions, towards the other/object. This way, the subject creates an object relation.

Winnicott said: “The object, if it is to be used, must necessarily be real in the sense of being part of a shared reality […] the analyst must take into account the nature of the object, not as a projection, but as a thing in itself” (p. 88, Playing and Reality)

Winnicott advocates for a facilitating environment, in which the baby can develop his abilities: “You have value to me because of my destruction of you… it is the destruction of the object that places it outside omnipotent control” (Playing and Reality, p. 89-90).

The child tries to destroy the object that has some importance to him, and then he changes his attitude. This depends on the capacity of the object to survive and ‘not retaliate’. So, the object has to be present and non-reactive.

Surviving the attacks of the patient isn’t an easy position to stand in, specially when delusion and manipulation make the analyst adopt some attitudes that can be bad for the analysis itself.

Thus, Winnicott said: “when the analyst knows the patient carries a revolver, then, it seems to me, this work can not be done” (Playing and Reality, p. 92). It seems to be, at least for me, great advice on the limit of the analysis.

The child is naturally directed to destructive impulses, but the absence of a facilitating environment brings out the annihilation impulses in the subject. However, each stage is rewarded by the increasing love.

First, the subject thinks that the object is under his control. Thus, he creates a feeling of omnipotence. Understanding the object as a separated thing, then he can think of the object as something that he can drive his aggressive impulses towards it through words and deeds.

The stability of the object, without retaliation, makes the subject love the object even more and care about it.