Introduction
The development of children is one of the most important topics in psychology. There are several theories that have been developed to explain the behavior of children at different stages of their life. Some of the renowned theorists include Freud, Erickson, Lacan, Piaget and Melanie Klein. Melanie Klein is one of the few women who developed theories that seek to enhance our understanding of children at their infancy stage. This paper explores Klein’s object relations theory within the treatment of children.
Major concepts of the theory
The Kleinian theory seeks to not only explain some of the fears and anxieties of babies but also the possible solutions to their different kinds of fears. The theory is based on the fact that small babies or rather children are able to learn their environment, which is the most crucial aspect in the development of certain behaviors not only in childhood but also in their adulthood. Edwards asserts that “anyone who observes small babies will soon become aware, their lives tend at times to be either threatened or completely overwhelmed at the beginning by feeling of terrifying chaos and abandonment” (2008, p. 58). This calls for the primary caregivers to create a conducive environment that does not cause any form of anxiety from the child in question to prevent the child from falling apart.
Klein’s theory mainly focuses on the tender age of new-born babies, one week old. In studying the behavior of the infant at that point, she introduced the concept of ‘Projective identification’ (Edwards, 2008, p. 27). Based on the level of unconscious fantasy experienced by young babies, Klein classified it as a type of an omnipotent impulse that is very crucial to the first weeks of existence of the baby in question. The theory asserts that if the impulse is reverted to the adult life of the child, it is linked with its disorders such as schizophrenia. Klein attributes the projective identification comprises of three very important aspects namely splitting, projecting and expelling feelings (Ibid). In some cases, it also includes the baby’s ability to identify the unwanted feeling in objects such as toys. The use of the objects to gain the necessary has two effects (Gericke, 2006, p. 75). First, it causes some form of confusion to the child. Secondly, it acts as a defensive mechanism of the child. The ability of the child to effectively create his/her own internal environment that suits her needs depends entirely on the caregiver, who in most cases is the mother.
Klein based the concept of ‘project identification’ on the line of thought of the subject i.e. the child. It refers to the child’s fantasized projections on to its primary caregiver/mother. According to Fordham in projective identification, the infant creates a rather new world whereby a part of his/her self is experienced as entering into an external self (p. 7). This causes the infant to identify with that other part containing his/her self-the object. This projection can yield two aspects. First, the infant ‘destroys’ more or less of the containing self or “it can provide information about it which can be integrated when the projection is withdrawn” (Fordham, 1993, p. 9). In most cases, according to Klein, most of the projections are intended to control or even harm the mother. This can be done by expelling some rather dangerous excrement to the mother, which is done in hatred (Buckingham, 2012, p. 5). In most cases, the manipulative and controlling behaviors of children typically take the form of angry, aggressive and destructive behaviors, charming and seductive behaviors or even a combination of these. From their first days in life, the infants use affective displays such as crying and smiling to command the attention of their caregivers. This gives the child a form of satisfaction that she has managed to either control or harm the mother making her unable to be a ‘bad object’ to her. In other words, it is a form of defense mechanism for the child. The infant also attempts to create a good relationship with the ‘object’ i.e. the mother or the primary care giver to ensure that he/she will continue to get the ‘good’ out of the ‘object’. This triggers the good and loving parts of the self (of the child) to be projected into the mother/primary caregiver. The theory postulates that the child is able to control the extent of her projections to ensure that he/she remains in control or rather retains his/her ego:
If this projective process is carried out excessively, good parts of the personality are felt to be lost and in this way the mother becomes the ego-ideal; this process too results in weakening and impoverishing the ego (Buckingham, 2012, p. 6)
The Oedipus complex is another concept that Klein employed in the development of the theory of object relations. She believes that children enter into the oedipal situation in their early infancy stage especially when they begin to perceive a world beyond themselves and the primary care giver/mother. Klein and Lacan, renowned psychoanalysts, believed that such a realization is a psychological transition. Some of the characteristic features that can be identified during the transition include a sense of deep grief, anxiety, loss, as well as fear o destructiveness. As aforementioned, infants have some defense mechanisms that enable them to adapt to the realties that they face in the course of their growth and development (Mandin, 2007, p. 153). They employ those mechanisms during this stage or rather transition as they continue to construct new meanings from the environment. Keylor asserts that this enables the child in question to “create a subjectivity and to experience himself as a person separate from the mother” (2003, p. 215). However, the types of symbols or mode of expression of the infants may differ significantly depending on their relationships with their mother/primary caregiver as well as the other constituents of the immediate environment.
Another concept that Klein used to explain the relationship between a baby and its mother (primary care giver) is referred to as the ‘transition-facilitating behavior’. This refers to all the aspects that a mother uses to enable her child feel comfortable and at peace not only with her immediate environment but also in the baby’s tiny mind. When children feel confident and secure in their everyday environments, they willfully and energetically explore their surroundings, learning how to react upon the world and how it reacts to their influences. Consequently, the behavior of the mother or rather the primary caregiver is very essential to the normal development of the child. Children use some specific elements to know the kind of attention and concern that their caregivers have for them. For instance, when a baby is full he/she associates her fullness to the presence of the mother. In the same manner, hunger to a baby means that the mother is gone or is not concerned about him/her. Therefore, for a baby to overcome any form of anxiety or any feeling of being terrified, he/she needs maximum attention from her mother. The mother should be willing to play her maternal duties to the baby and show utmost concern at all times (Warshaw, 1994, p. 402). It not only makes the child to feel secure but also aids in the development of a close relationship between the two parties. Such a relationship is essential as it enables the mother to perceive the world from the baby’s point of view. This enriches the relationship making the baby to move “towards self containment and a more realistic picture of the world” (Edwards, 2008, p. 59).
The Kleinian theory of object relations posits that the development of some form of unconscious defense begins from the point or rather time when the child is born. Some of the aspects noted in theory include the trauma of birth, the frustration of bodily needs, which the paper had not experienced before, the feeling of being separated from the mother, as well as the hatred that arises for all these aspects. Klein attributes these feelings to a certain beneficial object. Edwards asserts that Klein’s theory introduced the idea or rather notion of “something being done by someone to somebody-object relations from the beginning” (2008, p. 60). Fordham asserts that an infant and its parents are two different entities an aspect that calls for the infant to be actively involved in the relationship with the mother to enhance her survival (1993, p. 7). The infant becomes an independent party while in the uterus. This is evident in a number of ways: kicking, thumb-sucking and responding to sounds among others (ibid).
The theory is also applicable in explaining some of the painful experiences that we go through in life as dictated by our interaction with the surrounding. Human beings always tend to find the cause of their misfortune, accidents, loss or trauma. In their attempt to find the answers to their questions, they end up connecting their bitterness to certain people or environments that they have interacted with in their past as it provides a psychological roadmap. This can be applied to reconcile or even come to terms with the unfortunate things that might have happened. Houck-Loomis (2012) noted that:
This reconciliation allows us to begin to make sense of our lives amidst the reality of loss and trauma as our communities serve as symbolic representation of our lost love-object enabling ego integration (p.702).
As far as the relationship between the mother and the child is concerned, the child does not view the mother as one object from the beginning. He/she identifies with the most beneficial aspect i.e. the breast thus for a baby, the mother’s breast is the first object. Klein asserts that the baby sees the breast as the both good and bad depending on the circumstances in play. For instance, when he/she is hungry, she believes that the breast has deprived her of its right and vice versa. This depends on the nascent ego of the infant as well. As the child’s ego becomes more organized and the child is able to perceive different aspects from the normal point of view, he/she moves from the initial splitting position referred to as the paranoid-schizoid position in the Kleinian theory (Houck-Loomis, 2012, p. 703; Davies, 2008, p. 142). The child is then able to see the mother and the self as a whole object that encompasses not only the good but also the bad. From the splitting position, the child advances to the depressive position. In this position, the child’s ego begins to not only realize but also reconcile that the good and the bad are two parts of the same object as opposed to the perception during the splitting stage or rather position. This brings some of devastation to the infant since it feels that it has lost the idealized/fantasized good of the object i.e. the love object. Additionally, it creates some form of anxiety, depressive anxiety that the child has to deal with especially to prevent the ‘bad’ from overcoming the ‘good’ upon the realization that they both exist in the same object. Consequently, she directs all her efforts in recovering the good that she seemingly lost. Houck-Loomis asserts that the infant’s “reparation is accepted and handled by the mothering one, she can then introject the bad and the good into her own ego as it continues to develop” (2012, p. 702). This enables the child to continue learning more aspects of the world or rather environment that she lives in an aspect that is essential for the healthy development of a child. As aforementioned, a child uses certain impulses to express his/her feelings. Therefore, mothers and other primary care givers should be able to identify the different expressions of a child as well as their intended meaning.
The theory, as aforementioned, seeks to explain mother-child relationship. This initial relationship developed between a child and its mother plays a fundamental role in shaping the future relationship of the two. Research has shown that the relationship between mothers and their daughters can be best understood by applying the Kleinian theory (Keylor, 2007, p. 75; Keylor, 2003, p. 212). It positions the mother as the central figure in the process of the psychic development of a child. It depicts the mother’s mental work in the raising of a child as essential to the construction of the mind of the child (Segal, 1998, p. 487). In line with the feminist psychoanalysis approach, the theory posits that the “mother must be able to be theorized as a sexed subject whose relation to filiations and generational transmission is given expression in the symbolic economy” (Keylor, 2003, p. 178). This approach enables the mother-daughter relationship to remain functional as one or the sites for pathology and symptomology reflecting the lack of structural mediation.
Similarity of the arguments of Klein and other theorists
Some of the aspects of the theory are in line with the theories by other psychoanalysts. It draws much of its principles as well as arguments from Frued’s psychosocial theory. Lacan’s theory also has some major similarities as he borrowed much of his ideas from Klein. For instance, they are share the belief that mother-child relationship is the most important factor in “primary psychological experience of self and other” (Keylor, 2003, p. 216). Klein and Freud believe that every child begins his/her life with the capacity to perceive whole objects. This enables them to not only construct meaning from their immediate environment but also to perceive whole objects. In the process, they develop the capacity or rather ability to differentiate the external and internal worlds. Klein and Freud also argue that the relationship between a mother/primary caregiver and a child determines the psychosocial health or rather development of the child in the other stages of development (Proner, 1998, p. 449). This calls for mothers to have vast knowledge about how to take good care of their children and foster loving relationships, which are essential for the healthy development of a child.
The creation of the object (as postulated in the Kleinian theory) and the development of psychic structure (as depicted in Freud’s psychosocial theory) as intrinsically connected to hate. The development of hatred or love in a mother-child relationship depends on the ability of the child to project his/her feelings towards an object. According to the Kleinian theory, children are able to experience psychic pain. It originates from negative bodily experience and represented by negative unconscious fantasies. Infants are unable to tolerate psychic pain thus end up evacuating it immediately by projecting it into an object (the mother) who then becomes hated by the child. The child also perceives the object as hateful (Keylor, 2003, p. 218). The projection aspect is a process that occurs in distinct stages. It begins with the child’s ability to know and organize his/her experience, which ushers in the subjectivity itself. This process depends on the child’s successful projection of the pain he/she experienced into a newly created ‘bad’ object. Both Freud and Klein believed that the primary affect in the earliest stages of infancy is hate.
Common in the theories advanced by Klein, Freud and Lacan are the methods used by children to identify or rather attach themselves to their mothers. Children become more mobile, visibly seeing the attachment relationship becomes easier. By the age of three months, a normal child is capable of responding differently to his/her caregiver (s) than anyone else. This shows his/her level of understanding i.e. the ability to differentiate her mother from the other, people he/she might interact with (Donaldson, 1996, p. 166). For instance, a three-month-old infant may kick his/her arms and legs vigorously when seeing or interacting with their mother or primary caregiver. However, when interacting with a stranger or another person, the child may respond but not show any form of excitement. As the child ages, the visible reaction of the child is easier to observe. Once children begin to crawl or walk, they will return to their caregivers in times of distress using the caregivers as a safe base. Similarly, the secure attached child will ‘anchor’ away from his/her attachment figure/object when playing in the playground but will return back occasionally to make sure her/his attachment figure is there and seek physical contact before resuming play. This pattern of returning to a caregiver in times of distress and fro emotional and physical comfort is relatively stable in normal children.
Conclusion
Klein’s analysis of children presents a way to a particular sympathetic account of the infantile psyche as well as the problems that most children face during their initial stages of development. Additionally, it opens up new insights into adult psychology, and pathologies such as schizophrenia and depression. The object relations theory underscores the role and character of ‘fantasy’ in relations between ego and its objects. The connection between human being and the object world is forged through representation or the imagination.
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