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The limits of this undertaking will be more or less apparent from the following prospectus. Chapter 1 begins with an account of the mixed legacy we inherit from Freud, offers a brief overview of the principal contributions to object relations theory from Klein to Kohut, summarizes some of the major arguments against drive theory, and concludes by taking a firm stand in favor of a person-oriented theory of object relations. Chapter 2 attempts to integrate the most meaningful features of traditional object relations theory with attachment theory, with recent findings deriving from the observation of early mother-infant interaction, and with self theory. Chapter 3 provides a critical rereading of all of Freud’s major cases in a way that deemphasizes sexual factors while stressing inter per sonal conflict and attachment deficits. Chapter 4 continues the same strategy using published case histories of Winnicott, Lichtenstein, Seche-haye, and Bettelheim. Chapters 5 through 8 deal with object relations represented in literary fantasy. Chapter 5 emphasizes the permutations of attachment behavior depicted in the text of Moby Dick. Chapter 6 focuses on the special, essentially unsuccessful adaption to aberrant infant-parent relations exhibited by Meursault in The Stranger. Chapter 7 treats creative uses of the self as a facilitating environment in the poetry of Emily Dickinson. And chapter 8 traces patterns of attachment, separation, anxiety, and loss in four Shakespearean tragedies.
I am grateful to those who in various ways have assisted me in this endeavor. I especially want to thank the friends and colleagues who have read and commented on one or more chapters of this work: Peter Heller, Joseph Masling (whose high standards concerning what constitutes empirical evidence have remained beyond my reach, I fear), Charles Proudfit, David Richards (whose response has been so constructive and sustaining), and David Willbern. Their efforts helped me to avoid innumerable blunders, yet it goes without saying that they can in no way be held in the least degree responsible for any of the faults that doubdess remain. I am also grateful to Arthur Efron for his willingness to share discoveries with me, to Bruce Jackson for his sound advice, and to Claire Kahane and Ronald Ruskin for their friendly collegiality. I want to thank all of my students, graduate and undergraduate, for their patience in hearing me out and for the stimulation our interactions afforded me. I thank Jonathan Havey especially for the benefits of the many hours we spent discussing object relations theory. My sense of indebtedness to the late Emanuel Peterfreund runs deep. He was a source of strength for many years. I thank Joan Cipperman as much for allowing me to bask in the warmth of her presence as for her labor in typing the manuscript. To Leo Goldberger I am gready obliged for his willingness to include this book in the Psychoanalytic Crosscurrents series. And I want to thank Jason Renker and Despina Gimbel, at New York University Press, for all their help. Finally, and most important of all, I want to thank my wife for her untiring support.
1. DRIVE VERSUS PERSON: TWO ORIENTATIONS
One’s choice of terms always has consequences. So does one’s selection of explanatory frameworks. An instance from one of Winnicotfs case histories illustrates the distance between an orthodox, drive-oriented perspective on object relations and one that assumes that interpersonal relationships may reflect forms of attraction not necessarily fueled by sexual urges. A little girl called Gabrielle, only two years and ten months old, goes immediately to the toy box at the beginning of her sixth therapeutic consultation with Winnicott: “She put the two big soft animals together and said: They are together and are fond of each other’” (1977, 77). Winnicott responds in this instance with a sexual interpretation, one highly characteristic of his former mentor and supervisor, Melanie Klein: “And they are making babies.” Gabrielle, who has already glossed her own play in a very different way (’They are . . . fond of each other”), remarks, “No, they are making friends.” Would Winnicott’s customary, person-oriented mode of interpretation have been more accurate, and functional, at this point than the sexually oriented one? Many contemporary analysts might think so.
When it comes to selecting explanatory frameworks in the field of object relations theory, there is God’s plenty to choose from. To whose work do we turn for guidance? Even if we go first to the theory of object relations explicit and implicit in Freud, we cannot fail to be aware that the ensuing history of the development of object relations theory constitutes a complex and often conflicting response to his work in this area. Can we rely on the innovations of Melanie Klein, who still has many followers? Or can we perhaps find better guidance in the work of Fair-bairn, or Winnicott, or Guntrip, or Sullivan, or Bowlby, or Kohut? Practitioners of various kinds frequendy associate themselves with the object relations theory of a particular individual, Winnicott and Kohut being popular choices these days. Alternatively, many choose to be eclectic, often without thinking about it, by adopting a casual mixture of views: some Freud, for instance, with a helping of Klein, a dollop of Winnicott, and a lacing of Kohut. More commendable than passive eclecticism, surely, are deliberate attempts on the part of theoreticians to effect syntheses of earlier views, such as Kernberg’s attempted integration of “object-relations theory with psychoanalytic instinct theory and a contemporary ego psychological approach” (1976, 131). The problem in this case is that the proposed synthesis may prove to be unworkable because of incompatibilities inherent in the explanatory frameworks.
Virtually all current psychoanalytic schools of thought agree substantially on the fundamental importance of object relations, yet no consensus about these matters exists at present according to Greenberg and Mitchell (1983). To be more precise, they say that “underlying the apparent diversity of contemporary psychoanalytic theory there is a convergence of basic concerns” (2). It would be still more exact to speak not of “a convergence” but, in the plural, of convergences, or groups, of basic concern. Thus, for convenience, one may designate two major groups of object relations theory as drive oriented and person oriented. It may then be asked, should we select a person-oriented theory like those of Sullivan and Fairbairn, or a drive-oriented one like those of Freud and Melanie Klein? Or can we live with both, in a state of enlightened complementarity analogous to living with both wave and corpuscle theories of the behavior of light, as Greenberg and Mitchell imply is possible—and perhaps even desirable insofar as it may give rise to a “creative dialogue” between the two (408; cf. Mitchell, 1988)? Collateral questions then unfold. Is it possible to invest heavily in a person-oriented theory while retaining some interest in drive theory, as Winnicott appears to do? And if we totally reject drive theory, as Bowlby does, how satisfactory is attachment theory, which he considers to be a theory of object relations (1969, 17)? Does the strength of its empirical basis compensate for an orientation to outer reality that slights the inferable existence, volatility, and complexity of intrapsychic constellations of internalized objects, and that in rejecting libido theory neglects to account in any detail for sexual behavior?
The essential problem for the psychoanalyst, as Schafer sees it, is the problem of “finding the right balance” (1983, 293). He refers specifically to how much emphasis should be placed on the “inner world” and the “outer world.” “How much do you talk about real interactions and how much do you talk about the analysand’s fantasizing, particularly the unconscious infantile aspects of what is fantasized?” (292). One can think of other “balancing acts” that need to be considered as well, such as the possible “correct balance” between a self-oriented theory of