Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Klein: Object Relations
Theory
(^160) © The McGraw−Hill
Companies, 2009
154 Part II Psychodynamic Theories
attachment style that exists between caregiver
and infant, known as the Strange Situation. This
procedure consists of a 20-minute laboratory
session in which a mother and infant are initially
alone in a playroom. Then a stranger comes into
the room, and after a few minutes the stranger
begins a brief interaction with the infant. The
mother then goes away for two separate 2-
minute periods. During the first period, the in-
fant is left alone with the stranger; during the
second period, the infant is left completely
alone. The critical behavior is how the infant re-
acts when the mother returns; this behavior is
the basis of the attachment style rating.
Ainsworth and her associates found three at-
tachment style ratings: secure, anxious-resistant,
and avoidant.
In a secure attachment,when their mother
returns, infants are happy and enthusiastic and
initiate contact; for example, they will go over to their mother and want to be held.
All securely attached infants are confident in the accessibility and responsiveness of
their caregiver, and this security and dependability provides the foundation for play
and exploration.
In an anxious-resistant attachmentstyle, infants are ambivalent. When their
mother leaves the room, they become unusually upset, and when their mother returns
they seek contact with her but reject attempts at being soothed. With the anxious-
resistant attachment style, infants give very conflicted messages. On the one hand,
they seek contact with their mother, while on the other hand, they squirm to be put
down and may throw away toys that their mother has offered them.
The third attachment style is anxious-avoidant.With this style, infants stay
calm when their mother leaves; they accept the stranger, and when their mother re-
turns, they ignore and avoid her. In both kinds of insecure attachment (anxious-
resistant and anxious-avoidant), infants lack the ability to engage in effective play
and exploration.
Psychotherapy
Klein, Mahler, Kohut, and Bowlby were all psychoanalysts trained in orthodox
Freudian practices. However, each modified psychoanalytic treatment to fit her or his
own theoretical orientation. Because these theorists varied among themselves on
therapeutic procedures, we will limit our discussion of therapy to the approach used
by Melanie Klein.
Klein’s pioneering use of psychoanalysis with children was not well accepted
by other analysts during the 1920s and 1930s. Anna Freud was especially resistive to
the notion of childhood psychoanalysis, contending that young children who were
still attached to their parents could not develop a transference to the therapist be-
Mary Ainsworth