Feist−Feist: Theories of
Personality, Seventh
EditionII. Psychodynamic
Theories- Klein: Object Relations
Theory
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Companies, 2009Chapter 5 Klein: Object Relations Theory 143might go away and be lost forever. Fearing the possible loss of the mother, the infant
desires to protect her and keep her from the dangers of its own destructive forces,
those cannibalistic impulses that had previously been projected onto her. But the in-
fant’s ego is mature enough to realize that it lacks the capacity to protect the mother,
and thus the infant experiences guilt for its previous destructive urges toward the
mother. The feelings of anxiety over losing a loved object coupled with a sense of
guilt for wanting to destroy that object constitute what Klein called the depressive
position.
Children in the depressive position recognize that the loved object and the
hated object are now one and the same. They reproach themselves for their previous
destructive urges toward their mother and desire to make reparationfor these at-
tacks. Because children see their mother as whole and also as being endangered, they
are able to feel empathyfor her, a quality that will be beneficial in their future inter-
personal relations.
The depressive position is resolved when children fantasize that they have
made reparation for their previous transgressions and when they recognize that their
mother will not go away permanently but will return after each departure. When the
depressive position is resolved, children close the split between the good and the bad
mother. They are able not only to experience love fromtheir mother, but also to dis-
play their own love forher. However, an incomplete resolution of the depressive po-
sition can result in lack of trust, morbid mourning at the loss of a loved one, and a
variety of other psychic disorders.
Psychic Defense Mechanisms
Klein (1955) suggested that, from very early infancy, children adopt several psychic
defense mechanisms to protect their ego against the anxiety aroused by their own de-
structive fantasies. These intense destructive feelings originate with oral-sadistic
anxieties concerning the breast—the dreaded, destructive breast on the one hand and
the satisfying, helpful breast on the other. To control these anxieties, infants use sev-
eral psychic defense mechanisms, such as introjection, projection, splitting,and pro-
jective identification.
Introjection
By introjection,Klein simply meant that infants fantasize taking into their body
those perceptions and experiences that they have had with the external object, origi-
nally the mother’s breast. Introjection begins with an infant’s first feeding, when there
is an attempt to incorporate the mother’s breast into the infant’s body. Ordinarily, the
infant tries to introject good objects, to take them inside itself as a protection against
anxiety. However, sometimes the infant introjects bad objects, such as the bad breast
or the bad penis, in order to gain control over them. When dangerous objects are in-
trojected, they become internal persecutors, capable of terrifying the infant and leav-
ing frightening residues that may be expressed in dreams or in an interest in fairy tales
such as “The Big Bad Wolf ” or “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.”
Introjected objects are not accurate representations of the real objects but are
colored by children’s fantasies. For example, infants will fantasize that their mother