The Theory of Psychoanalysis: Influential Analysts/Books along the Way ( Part IV )

Object Relations Theory developed after Freud, but with all the analytic schools it's roots trace back to Freud. The first major contributor to Object Relations Theory was Melanie Klein in the British Psychoanalytic Society. She was there with Anna Freud in the 1940's. Anna Freud remained the loyal daughter to her Father's Theory and Melanie Klein was a huge innovator. I have read many secondary sources about Klein's theories but have not read her primary works. I have read a number of analyst's works who have been followers of Klein. In the British Society Anna Freud led the Modern Freudian group on one side of the spectrum, and on the opposite side was Melanie Klein and her followers in the Object Relations School. In the middle were the Independents. These analysts integrated both Anna Freud and Melanie Klein into their theorizing. I am most familiar with this British Middle Group. On my book shelf I have two books by D. W. Winnicott. They are: Psychoanalytic Explorations (published in 1989 but covering his papers from 1939 forward), and Through Pediatrics to Psycho-Analysis (published in 1958 but covering his papers from 1931 forward.) I have read some of his papers over the years and find his version of Object Relations Theory to be quite compatible with Freud. Many others share this same opinion. Another Middle Group analyst I have read is Michael Balint. His classic text is, The Basic Fault (1968.) And a final primary source in the Middle Group I have studied is John Bowlby's book, Attachment (1969.) Bowlby was the first major psychoanalyst to incorporate evolutionary biology into his Object Relations Theory. More contemporary Object Relations Theorists integrate Freudian Theory with Object Relations Theory. These include Otto Kernberg's Severe Personality Disorders (1984), and Borderline Conditions and Pathological Narcissism (1975.) Other contemporary analysts who also integrate Freud and Object Relations include: Margaret Mahler, The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (analytic infant researcher); Salman Aktar, Broken Structures; and Peter Fonagy, Perspectives from Developental Psychopathology. Most of these authors are also practicing analysts who specialize in working with lower functioning patients in the narcissistic/borderline level of personality organization. Object Relations Theory itself, beginning with Melanie Klein, grew out of analytic observations in working with just such patients. These patients are quite different than Freud's neurotic level patients he worked with and theorized about in his Theory. The third major theory I studied was Self Psychology. This Theory was created by Heinz Kohut in America in the early 1970's. Kohut also worked with lower level functioning patients--mainly narcissitic personalities. He was a classic Freudian from Vienna, Austria. He met Freud once. Kohut trained in Europe and migrated to America to the University of Chicago and the Chicago Psychoanalytic Institute where he spent his entire career. His first major book was, The Analysis of the Self. At this point in his thinking he was attempting to add into Modern Freudian Theory his thoughts about narcissistic level patients and how they differed from neurotic patients. He did so successfully in this first book. I first read this text while in pastoral psychotherapy training but have come back to it often since then. I believe Kohut was right on target when he added his newer theory derived from working with and thinking about narcissism. His second major book on the subject was the Restoration of the Self. He went much further in this text to theorize that the earlier formation of narcissism was more determinative of who we become than the later affects of the Oedipal Complex that Freud wrote so much about. This book took Kohut out of the mainstream Modern Freudian Theorists at that time, but today's Modern Freudians very much include Kohut in their Theory.( More about that later.) In addition to Kohut himself, I studied several of the Self Psychogy Group analysts and also read his book, How Does Analysis Cure? ( written posthumously after his death.) I think Kohut and the Self Psychology School have contributed greatly to the understanding of narcissistic patients. In my next post I will talk about Relational Theory and the integrating of all these major theories into the Modern Freudians of today (of which I am one. Please feel free to ask a question or make a comment.)