OBJECT RELATIONS

The concept of object relations is used in psychoanalysis to describe the way a subject relates to his world, this relationship being the result of the way his personality is structured, as well as the fantasies placed on the objects and their main psychic defenses. The baby is a psychologically undifferentiated organism that will gradually differentiate itself from its environment through maturation and development, the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein emphasizes that it is the bonds and not the drives as biological forces that produce mental development, where the connection of the mother with the child enables the intrapsychic structures that are derived from the internalization of that bond to be formed.

The functions of self-preservation mark the first object of sexuality for the child: the mother’s breast, later he learns to love other people who help him and satisfy his needs, this love is formed on the model and as an extension of relationships with mother.

This emotional pattern is what will guide the choice of a person as an object of love after puberty, which is produced by relying on the imagos of the parental figures, understanding by imago the idealized distortion of a person or an object. We see that the patterns of correspondence that we have displayed in our early childhood are what define the way we will link with others for the rest of our lives and is the essence of our personality. If the mother allows the child to express his true Self interacting with it, it can develop its full potential free from having to accommodate the wishes or needs of the mother. This child, growing up with his well-configured psychic structure, will be able to freely choose his relationships without having to adapt them to unconscious relational patterns of his first stages of life.