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Socialization, the transition from newcomer to embedded organizational citizen, is an inevitable feature of organizational life. It is often a painful and traumatic experience, but why this is so, and how its difficulties can be ameliorated, is not well understood. This article addresses this issue by developing a new person-centred model of socialization. We introduce the concept of kin-work, i.e. the replication of one’s first experiences of becoming part of a family, to explain how ‘successful’ socialization is achieved. Drawing on the methodology of memory work and psychoanalytical theories of object relations, we illustrate how entry into new jobs involves the unconscious re-enactment in adult life of the infant’s initiation into the family. On entry as a stranger to a new organization, one’s sense of self is fractured; processes of kin-work knit the pieces back together and one develops a sense of personhood and being at home. However, there is a sting in this tale: the homely contains its uncanny, unhomely opposite, so socialization is always ambivalent – one can never be at home in this place that feels like home.

Working with young children, Donald Winnicott (1951) identified transitional objects as items which were both created and discovered by an infant for comfort, and to support the developmental neces...

The author describes the characteristics of parasitic personality organization along with its developmental origins, especially pertaining to deficiencies in the formation of the sense of self. Spe...

Research with self-report measures of God representations suggests an association with personality pathology. However, according to object-relations theory, God representations are predominantly implicit. This observational study aimed at validating the implicit Apperception Test God Representations (ATGR). In a group of 74 patients with personality pathology and a group of 71 non-patients, correlations of measures of self-reported personality functioning with the implicit ATGR were compared with correlations with the explicit Questionnaire God Representations (QGR). Only in the clinical group, results corroborated the validity of three ATGR main scales by showing significant correlations with mostly nearly medium effect sizes.

Over the past two decades, neurobiology research has added clarity to the process of emotional and behavioral change. In turn, this has led to endorsement of interventions that appear to be most helpful in individual and couple therapy. In addition to research on emotional dysregulation, contemporary studies have focused on the construction of meaning and its relevance to interpersonal relationships. According to Lisa Barrett, Richard Lane, and others, the brain references concepts to rapidly arrive at the most probable conclusions. Encoded experience and memory fragments guide this process and are vital in understanding partners' emotional responses. These findings support an object relations perspective that emphasizes the importance of past relational experiences that inform the present. This is particularly relevant in work with couples, as each individual's beliefs, expectations, and capacity for intimacy are invariably tied to earlier relationships. Research findings on memory reconstruction provide a basis for interventions that can add to the existing treatment approach, as it is suggested that working in a specific way with emotionally based memories has the potential to modify and reduce their predictive power and ability to unleash beliefs and behaviors that work against intimacy. The therapist who is informed by emerging neuroscience research can better uncover and actively work with memories that may be compromising a couple's relationship.Durante las últimas dos décadas, la investigación sobre neurobiología ha aclarado el proceso de cambio emocional y conductual. A su vez, esto ha conducido a la aprobación de intervenciones que parecen ser más útiles en la terapia individual y de pareja. Además de la investigación sobre la desregulación emocional, algunos estudios contemporáneos se han centrado en la construcción de significado y su relevancia para las relaciones interpersonales. De acuerdo con Barrett (2018), Lane (2015) y otros, el cerebro nombra conceptos para llegar rápidamente a las conclusiones más probables. La experiencia codificada y los fragmentos de recuerdos guían este proceso y son fundamentales para comprender las respuestas emocionales de las parejas. Estos hallazgos respaldan una perspectiva de la relación de objetos que enfatiza la importancia de las experiencias relacionales anteriores que respaldan el presente. Esto es particularmente relevante en el trabajo con parejas, ya que las creencias, las expectativas y la capacidad de intimidad de cada persona están invariablemente ligadas a relaciones anteriores. Los resultados de las investigaciones sobre la reconstrucción de la memoria ofrecen una base para las intervenciones que puede potenciar el método de tratamiento existente, ya que se sugiere que trabajar de una forma específica con recuerdos basados en las emociones tiene el potencial de modificar y reducir su poder predictivo y su capacidad de desatar creencias y conductas que funcionan en contra de la intimidad. El terapeuta que se base en la investigación emergente sobre neurociencia podrá descubrir mejor y trabajar activamente con recuerdos que pueden estar comprometiendo una relación de pareja.在过去的二十年中，神经生物学研究帮助人们更加清晰地了解情绪和行为改变的过程。反过来，这也导致了对个体和夫妻疗法最有帮助的干预措施的认可。除了研究情绪失调外，当代研究还集中在意义的建构及其与人际关系的相关性上。根据Barrett (2018), Lane (2015) 等其他人的研究，大脑引用概念以快速得出最可能的结论。编码的经验和记忆片段指导了这一过程，对于理解伴侣的情绪反应至关重要。这些发现支持客体关系的视角，该视角强调了过去的关系经验的重要性，尤其是对现在有帮助的过往经历。这在夫妻治疗时尤其重要，因为每个人的信念，期望和亲密能力总是与早先的关系联系在一起。研究结果表明，记忆重建可以为那些作为新增加的治疗方法的干预措施提供基础，因为以特定方式对基于情感的记忆进行加工，有可能修改和降低这些记忆的预测能力以及摒弃不利于亲密行为的想法和行为的能力。了解新兴神经科学研究成就的治疗师可以更好地发现并积极处理可能损害夫妻关系的记忆。.

For adherents of theistic religions, God representations are an important factor in explaining associations between religion/spirituality and well-being/mental health. Because of limitations of self-report measures of God representations, we developed an implicit God representation instrument, the Apperception Test God Representations (ATGR) and examined its reliability and validity. Its scales could be scored reliably and were within a clinical sample associated more strongly than explicit God representation scales with the Global Assessment of Functioning scale. Compared to the ATGR scores of a nonclinical sample, the clinical sample had less complex, positive, and mature God representations, indicating discriminant validity.

The metaphor of the casino, with its associations of risk, uncertainty and illusion resonate at different levels of the contemporary cultural and political imagination where notions of chance and luck – together with the arbitrariness of being either a ‘winner’ or a ‘loser’ are pervading themes. This article combines cultural theory and object relations psychoanalysis to discuss the notion of casino culture as a psycho-cultural formation and its relationship to the emergence of what I call ‘casino politics’ within the contemporary era of risky populist politics in the US and the UK. The psycho-cultural approach deployed here, combines cultural and political analyses with the psychoanalytic theories of Psychoanalyst D. W. Winnicott (1971) and those influenced by his ideas such as Christopher Bollas (1987) and Thomas Ogden (1992) who in different ways, foreground the role of play, illusion and the fantasy of transformation in their work. As I discuss, such an approach is useful because of its focus on the irrational affective, unconscious investments that underpin the ideology of casino culture and its politics – particularly in the contemporary in context of Brexit politics in the UK and Trump’s presidency in US where the fantasies associated with gambling are collectively mobilized to gain mastery over uncertainty and loss. As I discuss, within such a scenario, notions of luck and its unreliability also take on gendered connotations as femininity becomes associated with the fickle nature of chance and fantasies of the unreliable mother – an image that can be found in representations of female political leadership. The article contextualises the discussion by mapping the key socio-cultural and historical coordinates of casino culture and then turns to psychoanalytic understandings of gambling and applies those ideas to the analysis of casino politics through fictional and non-fictional examples of political leadership, where fantasies of casino politics are represented and articulated.

Drawing constructs and techniques from object relations, schema therapy, and narrative therapy, this article explored means for constructing successful partnerships in collaboration and mentoring. Selected psychodynamics account for the phases and stages in creative collaboration. The initially hierarchal relationship of mentoring is instigative for reparenting and co-constructing of new perspectives. Self-development and service to the community occur within the context of the bridge between you and me. Case studies of mutuality and collaboration were presented to emphasize key constructs and helpful practices. Recommendations were offered to fuel the creative process of collaboration.

This paper traces a canon of documentary filmmakers in post-war psychoanalysis that informed the nascent field of child development. In examining the context for this visual turn, it analyses James Robertson’s A Two-Year-Old Goes to Hospital (Robertsonfilms and Concordmedia, Suffolk, 1952), which tracks the devastating emotional decline of a young girl separated from her primary carers for eight days. The paper foregrounds the aesthetic dimension inherent in the film’s production, which has been significantly under-investigated. It explores how this figuration of object relations theory contributed to the popularisation of a new discourse in infant subjectivity, namely attachment theory. Understanding is advanced by explicating how documentary film may produce richly contextualised knowledge of psychoanalytic phenomena through its ‘thick description’ of subjectivity situated in the external world. In light of this historical investigation, links between object relations theory and documentary film are made to further support the revival of documentary film as visual research in psychoanalysis.

Results about associations between God representations and well-being/mental health can be questioned because they are predominantly based on studies with self-report instruments. There are no well-validated implicit measures of God representations. Therefore we developed the Apperception Test for God Representations (ATGR). In a clinical (n = 75) and a nonclinical (n = 71) sample, we found patterns of associations of scales of the ATGR and of an explicit God representation measure with implicit and explicit measures of object-relational functioning that undergirded the validity of most ATGR scales. Differences in patterns of associations between patients and nonpatients could theoretically be explained by the concept mentalization.

Research has demonstrated that maladaptive relational functioning of patients suffering from personality disorders is associated with more negative God representations. This study demonstrated with a single group design among a group of 37 Christian patients with personality disorders, that changes in implicit God representations during psychotherapy, as assessed with the recently developed implicit Apperception Test God Representations (ATGR), were associated with changes in explicit God representations and object-relational functioning, but not in distress. Changes in explicit distress were associated with changes in explicit God representations. Results of cross-lagged analyses suggested that object-relational functioning affected God representations more than vice versa.

When the pandemic hit New York City, life changed overnight. In an effort to stay as safe as possible, usual roles and activities shifted. People became isolated, both from each other and from their usual ways of functioning and defining themselves. The professional practices of social work and social work education morphed at the same time, as did the personal lives of practitioners, students, and educators. The author describes navigating shifts in multiple roles: doctoral student, professor, social worker, patient, friend, and human being. Themes of shared trauma, object relations, grief, and parallel process are described in the context of the existential angst of the pandemic from a first-person narrative of the first few months of quarantine.

This study examines the construct validity of the Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global Rating Method (SCORS-G) by exploring the degree of convergence across different narrative sources (i.e., early memories [EM] and psychotherapy narratives [PT]) using a university-based outpatient sample (n = 101). First, we examined intercorrelations between SCORS-G ratings of EM and PT. Intercorrelations between SCORS-G EM and PT revealed that three of the dimensions significantly correlated with themselves across narrative type (Emotional Investment in Relationships [EIR], Experience and Management of Aggressive Impulses [AGG], and Self-Esteem [SE]), but that only AGG had its strongest correlation with itself (i.e., EM AGG to PT AGG). In addition, EM AGG was significantly related to all but one of the PT SCORS-G dimensions. Likewise, EM SE correlated with all but two of the PT SCORS-G dimensions. Second, we examined how narrative source related to clinical findings. With the use of a multimethod approach, we assessed how SCORS-G ratings from both narrative types correlated with selected variables from the Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) and Rorschach Inkblot Test. Findings indicated that there were only three instances in which both narrative types had significant relationships to the same variable/scale, and all three instances were with the Rorschach. Together, these findings suggest that even when using the same scale (SCORS-G), different narrative sources differentially activate aspects of object relations. In addition, the results highlight that difficulties with self-esteem and poor management of aggression in childhood interactions relates to patients' object relational functioning later in life. Clinical implications and future research are discussed.

This paper introduces the concept of "dissociative collusion" as a helpful theoretical and clinical tool for understanding and working with clients with histories of trauma in couple therapy. The paper describes ways to diagnose and treat dissociative collusion based on the integration of an object relations approach, a relational approach, and a narrative approach. Dissociative collusion, a unique version of the well-documented "couple collusion," describes relational unconscious dynamics where split-off aspects of one or both partners are mutually dissociated in a complementary fashion that becomes a part of the shared unconscious and is reenacted in destructive ways. The dissociative collusion concept is especially relevant to couple therapists who work with clients with histories of trauma, who frequently use dissociation as a primary defense mechanism. We suggest that the challenge and goal for couple therapy with this population are to help them reconnect and better oscillate between dissociated self-other configurations. A case of couple therapy of a wife who had been a victim of childhood sexual abuse and her husband who displayed frequent use of dissociative defenses is presented.Este artículo presenta el concepto de "colusión disociativa" como herramienta teórica y clínica útil para comprender y trabajar con pacientes con antecedentes de trauma en la terapia de pareja. El artículo describe maneras de diagnosticar y tratar la colusión disociativa basándose en la integración de un enfoque de la relación de objeto, un enfoque relacional y un enfoque narrativo. La colusión disociativa, una versión única de la bien documentada “colusión de pareja”, describe una dinámica relacional inconsciente donde los aspectos de la separación de uno o ambos integrantes de la pareja están disociados mutuamente de una manera complementaria que se vuelve parte del inconsciente compartido y se restablece de maneras destructivas. El concepto de colusión disociativa es especialmente relevante para los terapeutas de pareja que trabajan con pacientes con antecedentes de trauma, quienes con frecuencia usan la disociación como mecanismo de defensa principal. Sugerimos que el desafío y el objetivo para la terapia de pareja con esta población es ayudarlos a reconectarse y a oscilar mejor entre configuraciones disociadas del otro yo. Se presenta un caso de terapia de pareja de una esposa que había sido víctima de abuso sexual en la infancia y su esposo que demostró el uso frecuente de defensas disociativas.本文介绍了”解离式共生”这个概念，在伴侣治疗中它是一个实用的理论工具和临床方法。它用于了解有创伤历史的来访者以及帮助他们治疗。 本文整合了客体关系法、关系法和叙事法等，在此基础之上描述了如何诊断和如何治疗解离式共生的具体方法。“夫妻共生”方面的研究案例记录已经非常详实了，而“解离式共生”是“夫妻共生”的一种特殊类型。它描述了一种无意识的伴侣关系动态，其中一方的自我解离或双方之间的分裂以互补的方式相互独立，这成为了共同的无意识部分，以各种破坏性的方式重复出现。“解离式共生”这个概念对于工作对象为有创伤历史的来访者的伴侣治疗师而言特别相关。这样的来访者经常会使用解离关系作为一项主要防御。我们建议在与这个群体进行伴侣治疗时认识到困难之处和目标是帮助他们重新建立连接，并在分裂的自我-他者的结构形式之间更好地调整。本文列举了一次伴侣治疗的案例，妻子曾是童年时期性虐待（CSA）的受害者，而她的丈夫经常使用解离性防御。.

Instead of considering procrastination as a unitary construct we argue that it takes different forms and has multiple explanations and determinants. While it is fair to consider procrastination a cognitive focusing issue, we posit that the motivational sources for this vary depending on where someone can be located with regard to the "existential" developmental positions that have been explicated over many years by Object Relations clinical theorists: the autistic-contiguous, paranoid-schizoid, depressive, and transcendental. These positions generate different understandings of what motivates procrastination and in turn, effects the interventions we offer. We note both clinical and commonplace examples.

El presente artículo sintetiza un estudio cualitativo acerca de la conexión entre los Estilos de Apego (establecidos a partir de experiencias de relacionamiento tempranas con figuras de Apego) y la etapa de la adolescencia que los hace más evidentes. Se trabajó con un estudio de casos bajo la combinación metodológica clínica-fenomenológi- ca y enfoque narrativo, utilizando el modelo de cuatro Estilos de Apego propuesto por Bartholomew y Horowitz (1991), en el análisis narrativo de relatos de vida, de las entrevistas en profundidad y de las respuestas al Test de Relaciones Objetales (Phillipson, 2005). Se logró identificar las características de los Estilos de Apego, así como los temores e ideales al interior del comportamiento relacional actual de los jóvenes, y las diferentes maneras de expresión de las conexiones entre los Estilos de Apego y las relaciones que se establecen con los demás durante la adolescencia.

Despite considerable progress in depression research and treatment, the disorder continues to pose daunting challenges to scientists and practitioners alike. This article presents a novel conceptualization of the psychological dynamics of depression which draws from Melanie Klein's notion of the positions, reformulated using social-cognitive terms. Specifically, Klein's notion of position, consisting of anxieties (persecutory vs. "depressive"), defense mechanisms ("primitive"/split based vs. neurotic/repression based), and object relations (part vs. whole) is reformulated to include (1) affect, broadly defined, (2) affect regulatory strategies (defense mechanisms, coping strategies, and motivation regulation), and (3) mental representations of self-with-others, all pertaining to the past, present, and future. I reformulate the depressive position to include-beyond sadness, anxiety, and anhedonia-also anger/agitation, shame, disgust, and contempt, all of which are down-regulated via diverse mechanisms. In the depressive position, the self is experienced as wronged and others as punitive, albeit seductive. Attempts to appease internal others (objects) are projected into the future, only to be thwarted by awkward and inept interpersonal behavior. This might propel the use of counter-phobic, counter-dependent, and "manic" affect regulatory mechanisms, potentially leading to suicidal depression.

This study investigates the correlations between spirituality, the essential part of religion, and prosocial motive, the basis of prosocial and altruistic behavior. Participants of this study are 300 seminary students coming from various theological schools in Bandung. This study uses Hall & Edwards theoretical perspective on Self-God Relationship Awareness (ARG), Quality of one’s relationship with God (QRG), and four prosocial motives – egoism, collectivism, principleism, and altruism – of Daniel C. Batson. There is strong correlation between spiritual maturity and prosocial motives, C = 0,6364. ARG has significantly correlation with prosocial motives collectivism (rs = 0,417) and principleism (rs = 0,420). Therefore, Unstable (rs = 0,511) and Grandiose (rs = 0,511) sub dimensions related more with prosocial motives which driven by egoism. Realistic acceptance sub dimension is significantly related with prosocial motives altruism (rs = 0,422).

This article explores the under-stated, shadowy but nevertheless significant role of psychoanalysis in the work of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at Birmingham University in Britain, whose development it reviews from the latter’s inception in 1964. It notes an early distance between the emerging social and political focus of Cultural Studies, and what were perceived to be the individualist and liberal perspectives of Freudian psychoanalysis in Britain. It points out that psychoanalytic perspectives and methods came to have a significant role in its later writing, as the Centre engaged with issues of gender and race, complementing its earlier focus on social class. It was through the Lacanian rather than British object relations tradition that psychoanalytic ideas were first taken up and incorporated into the CCCS’s complex Gramscian analyses of cultures, ideologies and ‘conjunctures’. The idea is proposed that Stuart Hall’s and the CCCS’s conception of culture as a source of creativity and agency, as well as of repression, is, however, consistent with the approach to meaning and symbolism of the British analytic tradition, and that there is scope for a further conjunction of these approaches.

In recent years, critics working with psychoanalysis have increasingly turned their attention to the relationship between therapy and culture. Following Lacan and Foucault, many critics are wary of the way in which the idea of therapy has become a tool of surveillance and control, whilst those influenced by the object relations tradition concern themselves with the therapeutic effect that might be gleaned from cultural experience. Through a close reading of the HBO series In Treatment, this article explores the contours of this debate in order to theorise what psychoanalysis might offer to contemporary cultural studies. The article argues, ultimately, for a perspective informed by both Lacanian and object relations psychoanalysis that can account for the therapeutic value of cultural experience whilst concurrently offering a critical analysis of the ways in which representation is implicated in relations of power.

Abstract. Psychoanalytic theory offers multiple ways of organizing clinical data. In this paper, I comment on the preceding papers and offer an integrative discussion of Rorschach test analyses from the perspectives of object relations, ego psychology, interpersonal psychology, self psychology, and attachment theory. Each theory approaches the case somewhat differently, highlights different data points, and focuses on different inferences. In the end, however, each separate analysis reaches a similar endpoint with respect to the identification of core themes as manifested on the Rorschach test.

If one begins with the assumption that human beings have an innate drive to be in relationships, then one understands behavior that seems counter to that goal as defensive behavior learned to protect against anticipated injury in the interpersonal world. This leads to a leader focus on the ways group members relate to one another, underlining and working with those behaviors that invite intimacy and those that do not.

Freud’s drive theory has been questioned since the 1940s when Fairbairn created a metaphor of the mind that is not based on the tripartite model and drive theory. His work inspired others to elabor...

The analyst's relocation is relatively neglected in the literature. Yet relocation is profoundly unsettling, striking at the psychoanalytic contract in a way that illness or even severe countertransference disturbances do not, and this unsettling aspect of resettling can disturb analytic functioning. The few previous papers about relocation focus on how to best understand and manage "reality" intrusions in terms of the nature and status of the transference relationship. In this paper, an engagement with object relational ideas is the prism through which to examine the dislocations of relocation and the potential disruptions of thinking caused by the vicissitudes of moving.

Some of the rich history of the

This article traces the formation of attachment theory to the pioneering research program of Bowlby and his colleagues at the Tavistock Clinic between 1948 and 1956. Through a discussion of the concepts and practices that informed Bowlby's program, I examine the efforts of his team to reconstruct psychoanalytic objects according to preventive objectives and operational criteria. I discuss how the exploratory techniques that Bowlby and his colleagues were developing during these years ultimately led to the establishment of a hybrid investigative framework, in which the prophylactic requirements of mental hygiene, the psychometric model of personality disturbances, the psychoanalytic theory of object relations, and a direct-observational methodology were brought to bear on the problem of the psychological consequences of early separation experiences. I further claim that this shift in investigative practice was crucial for the succeeding theoretical developments that eventually gave rise to the statistically validated constructs of attachment theory.

'Perversion is taken to mean different things within psychoanalytic discourse. In this book the authors view perversions, not in terms of specific behaviours, but as a type of blueprint for object relations. While perversions may involve a quest for excitement through sex, drugs or gambling, for example, the focus here is on the underlying incapacity - or indeed at times refusal - to relate to the other as separate from the self and not as a narcissistic appendage. It is the anxieties aroused by intimacy and relatedness that drive the pursuit of ecstasy and excitement. Psychoanalytic thinking can help multidisciplinary teams to stand back and respond to the addictive state of mind in humane and containing ways that are not collusive. This book thus provides rich food for thought not only for the individual practitioner but also for those responsible for shaping services for addicted individuals.' - Alessandra Lemma, from the Preface.

Childhood sexual abuse and trauma influence relational development in significant ways. Notable among them are the development of a patient's internal object world, fantasies, and sense of self. Dynamic formulations and holding techniques are used to identify, process, and alter fractured relational dynamics. However, the use of such techniques may also influence a patient's narrative process, pulling them away from the realities of their life as lived. Using the case study method, focusing specifically on the patient's narrative development, this article examines the impact of analytic framing on a patient's experience of child sexual abuse and trauma.

This review essay reflects on Renee Lertzman’s Environmental Melancholia (2015), which understands human engagement with ongoing ecological crises as predominantly defined by loss, melancholy and ambivalence. The book provides a psychoanalytic and psychosocial analysis of engagement and non-engagement with environmental issues, based on in-depth interviews with respondents who live in close proximity to ‘ecologically beleaguered’ places. This review provides a brief overview of Lertzman’s rationale, methodology and analysis. It then offers some critical reflections on the dimensions of engagement Lertzman offers, in terms of her understanding of the nature of loss, the salience of unconscious dynamics and her utilisation of the psychosocial.

W. R. D. Fairbairn believed that the psychoanalyst's motivations and theories must ultimately be rooted in a need to resolve personal conflicts. His self-analytic and other records, now publicly available, indicate how his struggles with unacceptable sexual feelings and their symptomatic manifestations affected not only his theorizing, especially about sexuality, but also his clinical practice, as well as his personal and family life. Fairbairn's case affords a unique opportunity to document the effects of homophobia in a major psychoanalyst.

The Social Cognition and Object Relations Scale-Global Rating Method (SCORS-G; Stein, Hilsenroth, Slavin-Mulford, & Pinsker, 2011 ; Westen, 1995b ) reliably measures the quality of object relations in narrative material. It assesses 8 dimensions (on a continuum from maladaptive to adaptive) that mediate interpersonal functioning. The 8 dimensions can be averaged to create a global or composite score to represent a person's overall object relational functioning. This study aimed to create levels of personality organization using the SCORS-G global score ratings of Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) narratives and to explore the construct validity of these levels using a multimethod approach (i.e., psychopathology, normal personality, and life-event data). Meaningful relationships were found between the SCORS-G level of personality organization and aspects of psychopathology (Personality Assessment Inventory; Morey, 1991 ), regulation and control (NEO Five-Factor Inventory; Costa & McCrae, 1989, 1992b ), and number of psychiatric hospitalizations, suicide attempts, and educational level. Overall, this study demonstrates the potential value of creating levels of personality organization (LPO) using the SCORS-G composite or global ratings as a supplement to the psychological assessment process and further highlights the utility of this measure in the field of personality assessment. Clinical and research-related implications as well as limitations are discussed.

The intrapsychic mechanisms for the intergenerational transmission of suicide are not adequately theorized, though it is well known that a family history of suicide places survivors at increased risk for suicide. The suicide of a family member, particularly a parent, it is hypothesized, marks some survivors with a type of trauma associated with moral injury, which may produce an alteration in object relations with the emergence of what may be called a mysterious object. Under the press of these conditions, survivors may embark on what Apprey (2014) has termed an “urgent errand” in an effort to solve a problem in the anterior generation. Analysands with a history of familial suicide may bring symptoms of moral injury, a mysterious object relation, and a risk for suicide into the transference. The family history, life history, and literary work of the novelist Walker Percy, who had an extensive family history of suicide, provides evidence for the hypothesis linking moral injury, a mysterious object, and an urgent errand in such patients.

This article observes the 50th anniversary of The Who with a psychodynamic analysis of their landmark rock opera Tommy. Applying object relations theory, attachment, and trauma research, the article casts the opera as an illustration of instinct and insecure attachments, exacerbated by childhood trauma, culminating in an adult relational style that suggests schizoid and narcissistic personality features. The article offers an overview of object relations theory, attachment patterns, pertinent object relations units, serving as a potential teaching tool in keeping with the tradition of bibliotherapy, or its derivative discipline, cinematherapy. The article pays particular attention to the influence of distorted parent/child communication in the development of pathology.

Drawing on contemporary theory of female development that focuses on the dynamics of the mother/daughter relationship regarding issues of separation and individuation, this article examines the treatment of a middle aged mother as she navigates her way through her daughter's adolescence and early adulthood. Psychoanalytic object relations, psychoanalytic relational theory, and feminist theory serve to frame an understanding of the case material in terms of developmental challenges that are uniquely female. Issues around mother/daughter attachment, separation, competition, conflict, and love are explored in the relationships between the patient and her mother, the patient and her daughter, and the patient and the therapist. The therapist's countertransference, intensified by her relationships with her own mother and daughter, suggests the possibility of both pitfalls and opportunities in the treatment. The article attempts to address a gap in psychoanalytic developmental theory, which offers little...

The clinical case illustrates how the transference–countertransference relationship is essential to understanding the patient's inner world and the nature of his or her object relations. An individual develops his or her own identity by mobilising and organising defensive mechanisms to provide for protection from mental pain and so to survive. The chapter considers an adult relationship is not exclusive to any one type of relationship—homosexual or heterosexual—but has to do, rather, with the degree of the individual's maturity. It is, therefore, not the choice of object in itself that indicates the pathology, but, rather, the way in which the internal and external objects are experienced. Some clinical material is presented, along with some comments, concluding with some considerations about the patient's losses and countertransference. The patient repeatedly described circumstances in which she felt that she had to deal with everything while others just stood by, incapable of recognising how burdened she was.

This article discusses the development of a psycho-cultural approach that brings together object relations psychoanalysis and cultural studies to explore the psycho-dynamics of culture, politics and society. While foregrounding the work of Donald Winnicott and other psychoanalysts influenced by his ideas, I contextualise that approach by tracing my own relationship to the study of psychoanalysis and culture since I was a Cultural Studies student in the 1980s and 1990s and also my engagement with the psychoanalytic scene that existed in London at that time. I have since applied a psycho-cultural lens to the study of masculinity and emotion in cinema and more recently to the study of emotion and political culture in Europe and the US. The article provides an example of that work by discussing the populist appeal of Donald Trump in the US and Nigel Farage in the UK, where the contradictory dynamics of attachment, risk and illusion are present when communicating with their supporters and the general public.

This paper addresses the problem of pressure on a person to forgive that often makes forgiveness impossible or superficial. It proposes that clients who are unwilling or unable to forgive can still be encouraged to let go of interpersonal hatred because it is psychologically harmful to them. The issue of forgiving the person toward whom the hatred is directed can be treated more easily later, after the hatred has been removed or at least much reduced. The present theoretical approach distinguishes between anger and hatred; it provides a brief understanding of the origin of hatred from an object relations perspective with a focus on splitting. The emphasis is on moderate interpersonal hatred, since severe hatred raises special difficulties. The question of when a person has sufficient freedom to let go of moderate hatreds is addressed. This is followed by identifying reasons why people enjoy hatred, and how hatred provides some short-term psychological rewards. Finally, different psychological harms caused by hatred are identified. Overcoming interpersonal hatred by praying for those you hated is presented; the effect of such prayer on reducing splitting is especially noted. The conclusion is a descriptive summary of stages to be used in treating clients’ hatreds before addressing forgiveness.

Over a long, distinguished career, Sidney Blatt contributed to theory and research in personality development, personality assessment, and psychotherapy. Best known for his 2-configurations model of personality and author or co-author of more than 250 articles and 18 books and monographs, Blatt was also a master clinician, a psychoanalyst who was awarded the 1989 Bruno J. Klopfer Award by the Society for Personality Assessment (SPA) for his contributions to both self-report and performance-based assessment. He was also the president of SPA from 1984 to 1986. This special series contains papers by writers who participated in all aspects of Blatt's contributions to personality assessment, both self-report and performance-based. Topics covered include Blatt's 2-configurations model of personality, development, and psychopathology; boundary disturbance and psychosis in performance-based assessment; the interaction of gender and personality on narrative assessments; and the Object Relations Inventory and differentiation relatedness, especially as these relate to therapeutic outcome.

As a perspective on Mammen and Miroenkos the article is reflecting on the possibility of Activity Theory being a foundation on which Psychology could be integrated. Mammen and Miroenkos point that directed activity not only is towards objects "defined as a sum of qualities, but by individual reference" is a starting point. As a specific example the phenomenon Love, as "significant object relations", is related to the concept "choice categories". It is stated that relations of affection and love can't be understood independent of history of common activity, and that this makes the concept "choice categories" central in a psychological understanding of what love is.