Book
Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory
Jay R. Greenberg and Stephen A. Mitchell's book, published by Harvard University Press in 1983, compares the major psychoanalytic theories according to one question: where each places a person's relations with others. The authors distinguish two basic models. In the drive/structure model, which descends from Freud, relations with others are generated and shaped by the need to gratify drives. In the relational/structure model, relations are primary and cannot be reduced to anything more basic. The book reads Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal psychoanalysis and the British object relations theories of Melanie Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott and Guntrip as radical alternatives to drive theory. It reads the ego psychology of Hartmann, Mahler, Jacobson and Kernberg as a strategy of accommodation, which widens drive theory to take object relations in. Kohut and Sandler are treated as mixed-model strategies that combine elements of both. A final chapter follows the divergence between the two models into debates on diagnosis and clinical technique.
Main ideas
- Psychoanalytic theories can be compared by where they place relations with others: as derived from drives or as primary in themselves.
- The drive/structure model, descending from Freud, holds that object relations are generated and shaped by the need for drive gratification.
- The relational/structure model holds that relations with others are primary and irreducible.
- Sullivan's interpersonal psychoanalysis and the British object relations theories of Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott and Guntrip are radical alternatives to drive theory.
- The ego psychology of Hartmann, Mahler, Jacobson and Kernberg is a strategy of accommodation that widens drive theory to include object relations.
- Kohut and Sandler represent mixed-model strategies that draw on both models.
- The divergence between the two models runs through debates on diagnosis and clinical technique.
What it shows
- 1983
Stephen A. Mitchell introduced Relational psychoanalysis
Mitchell and Jay Greenberg first used "relational" as the name of a family of theories in their 1983 book. Mitchell then made it the name of a school: his 1988 integration, the journal Psychoanalytic Dialogues (1990), the Relational Perspectives book series and the relational track at NYU's postdoctoral programme.
- 1983
Jay Greenberg introduced Relational psychoanalysis
Greenberg is the co-author of the 1983 book that gave relational psychoanalysis its name. He later moved away from Mitchell's pure relational position and went back to a revised concept of drive.
- 1983
Stephen A. Mitchell introduced Drive/structure and relational/structure models
With Greenberg, Mitchell drew the line between theories in which relations with others serve the drives and theories in which relations come first. That division became the founding frame of the relational school.
- 1983
Jay Greenberg introduced Drive/structure and relational/structure models
Greenberg, Mitchell's co-author on the 1983 book, shares credit for the two-model classification. Unlike Mitchell, he later argued that psychoanalysis cannot do without a drive concept.
- 1983
Stephen A. Mitchell collaborated with Jay Greenberg
Both trained at the William Alanson White Institute and together wrote Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory (1983), the comparative survey that set out the drive and relational models. Later they parted ways on whether drive still has a place.
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Harry Stack Sullivan influenced Stephen A. Mitchell
Mitchell trained in the interpersonal tradition at the White Institute, which Sullivan co-founded. Sullivan's interpersonal theory is one of the two roots of the relational model he and Greenberg described, and one of the strands his 1988 integration draws together.
Ronald Fairbairn influenced Stephen A. Mitchell
Fairbairn's view that libido is object-seeking, not pleasure-seeking, is a cornerstone of the relational model. In Relationality Mitchell built on Fairbairn's idea of a self made of many internal self–other configurations.
Relational psychoanalysis derives from Interpersonal psychoanalysis
The relational school grew out of the American interpersonal tradition of Sullivan, Fromm and Thompson, mostly among analysts trained at the White Institute. It took from that tradition its focus on actual interactions and the analyst's participation.
Relational psychoanalysis derives from Object relations theory
The second root of the relational school is British object relations theory, above all Fairbairn and Winnicott. From it the school took its concern with internal objects and with relations as the stuff of mind.
Relational psychoanalysis derives from Drive/structure and relational/structure models
The school takes its name and starting point from the 1983 split between drive/structure and relational/structure models. It grew from the relational side of that divide.