Object Relations Theory


Resolving Human Conflict
All psychotherapists are concerned with resolving human conflict, whether the conflict exists within an individual, between individuals, or among members of a group. Most orientations to psychotherapy employ various techniques to resolve these conflicts. However, object relations based psychotherapy offers a deeper level of resolution by identifying and resolving the underlying causes of human conflict. This is because object relations therapy assumes that familiar conflicts from early childhood help create a blueprint of how the self-system will develop and maintain relationships later in life. To understand this we need to understand how the self-system develops.

The self-system develops out of genetic predispositions such as temperament that we bring into the world with us. This accounts for roughly half of who we are. The other half comes from our interactions with the world around us, the most significant of those interactions occurring during the first two years of life, which is when the self-system develops. During this critical period of developing a sense of self, the child incorporates aspects of the relational environment to create a self-system, which is the core of the personality. These aspects of the relational environment, along with the genetic predispositions are literally the building blocks of the self. Because the child incorporates many aspects of the relational environment such as parental behavior into the developing self-system, the child internalizes much of the family drama into his or her personality. Later in life, the growing child and eventually the adult seeks out others to play the parts of this family drama template.

Of course, we cannot actually go around asking others to be part of our internal family drama. Instead, we learn to manipulate and distort others so they appear to conform to the blueprint for establishing and maintaining relationships we learned as children in our primary family. The other person whom we are distorting is also manipulating and distorting us to conform to his or her family template. Most of this is outside conscious awareness, which makes it all the more powerful and difficult to resolve. This constant distorting of the other leads to relationships that are inherently problematic in that we really do not understand the other and we are unable to express our true psychological needs since exposing those needs and vulnerabilities would erode the manipulative pattern we used to establish and preserve the relationship.

A clear example of this process is when you "fall in love." Falling in love is the distortion of the other to conform to your internal image of an ideal mate. This ideal mate is based on your deepest relational needs, which are based on your internalized family drama. Friends who point out the less attractive qualities of your romantic partner, of which you are in denial, often surface the distortion process. However, love prevails and you end up in a marriage or other form of committed relationship with a person you distorted. Keep in mind, the other person has engaged in a similar process of distorting you to conform to his or her internalized ideal mate. Then, perhaps three years later, you wake up one morning and realize that you have no idea who the person lying next to you really is. This is a critical point in the relationship. You and your partner now have to decide whether to invest the time and energy into breaking through the distortions and truly discovering the other or to go your separate unhappy ways.

While falling in love provides a vivid example of how we distort others in relationships, it does not offer the whole picture. This process of distortion and later attempts to break through to a realistic view of the other is part of all human relationships. In addition, it is always the unresolved distortions and conflicts in human relationships that in the end bring people into psychotherapy. The primary goal of object relations based psychotherapy is to help patients resolve these conflicts.

Object relations therapy resolves conflicts growing out of human relationships by developing an understanding of the unique pattern of distortions and manipulations the patient uses to establish and maintain relationships. Since the dysfunctional pattern is a blueprint imbedded in the drama of the patient’s family of origin, it emerges in all relationships including the therapeutic relationship. The task of the therapist is to provide a safe environment that will allow the dysfunctional pattern to emerge and then find empathic ways of confronting it. The therapist essentially refuses the induction into the patient's maladaptive pattern of relating which causes the patient to seek out new, healthier methods of relating. A healthier way of relating requires the patient to recognize and express his or her needs for acceptance and validation openly and honestly. This is no easy task since the patient built a template for relating based on a family relational pattern that required the patient to deny his or her needs in order to survive in the family system. The goal of therapy is to bring all this into the conscious awareness of the patient and help the patient find new ways of relating. It is a process of helping the patient move from manipulative, dependent patterns of relating to honest, autonomous ways of relating. The exact therapeutic methods for achieving this are covered in my Eight Stages Model of object relations therapy.