The object relations school

Key ideas

Object relations theorists, led by Melanie Klein, focused on relationships rather than sexual drives.

• An object is a significant other (such as the mother), part of a person, or a mental image of someone.
• Infants first experience part-objects, such as the 'good' feeding breast and the 'bad' frustrating breast, rather than whole people.
• Splitting: keeping good and bad experiences apart to protect the ego from anxiety.
• Projective identification: putting an unwanted part of the self onto someone else and pressuring them to act it out.
• Early relationships are internalised as models that shape later relationships.

Klein's positions

• Paranoid-schizoid position (first four to six months): the infant fears being destroyed, focuses on self-preservation and relies on splitting and projection.
• Depressive position (from about six months): the caregiver is seen as one whole person who is both good and bad; the infant feels guilt about harming someone loved, and makes reparation.

These are positions, not fixed stages: people can return to them under stress. Winnicott and Fairbairn later gave more weight to the real environment, such as the 'good enough' mother.

Object relations as therapy

• Early relationships shape how patients see others, including the therapist (links to transference).
• Klein used the play technique with children (some as young as two or three), reading play as adults' dreams are read, instead of free association.
• The therapist helps the patient recognise splitting and projective identification and form more balanced, whole views of others.

Evaluation: shifts focus to relationships and influenced attachment theory, and helps explain severe disturbance; but it is hard to test, relies on clinical interpretation (subjective), attributes complex thought to very young infants, and neglects genetics and later life.

Worked example

A patient describes their manager as perfect one week and as completely useless the next. Explain this using object relations theory.

1. The patient cannot hold good and bad together in one person.
2. This is splitting, typical of the paranoid-schizoid position.
3. Therapy would aim to help them see the manager as a whole person with good and bad qualities (the depressive position).

Answer: Splitting: the person is seen as all good or all bad instead of as a whole object.

Check yourself

1. In object relations theory, an 'object' usually means
   • a toy
   • a sexual drive
   • a defence mechanism
   • a significant other or a mental image of them
   Show answer

   a significant other or a mental image of them. Objects are people or images of people.

2. Seeing someone as all good or all bad is called
   • repression
   • splitting
   • transference
   • reparation
   Show answer

   splitting. Good and bad are kept apart.

3. Which position comes first, in roughly the first four to six months?
   • Depressive
   • Genital
   • Latency
   • Paranoid-schizoid
   Show answer

   Paranoid-schizoid. The paranoid-schizoid position comes first.

4. What characterises the depressive position?
   • Seeing the caregiver as one whole person and feeling guilt and a wish to make reparation
   • Fear of being destroyed and constant splitting
   • Sexual energy focused on the mouth
   • Copying a role model
   Show answer

   Seeing the caregiver as one whole person and feeling guilt and a wish to make reparation. The caregiver becomes a whole object.

5. What technique did Klein use instead of free association with children?
   • Systematic desensitisation
   • Token economy
   • Play technique
   • Brain scanning
   Show answer

   Play technique. She interpreted children's play.

6. Explain one weakness of the object relations school.
   Show answer

   It is hard to test scientifically because it relies on the therapist's subjective interpretation of patients and on assumptions about infants' inner lives that cannot be observed.. Testability or subjectivity.

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Sources

• Pearson Edexcel International Advanced Subsidiary/Advanced Level in Psychology specification, Issue 5 (February 2021)
• Pearson IAL Psychology component guide: WPS02 (Issue 2, November 2024)
• Simply Psychology: Melanie Klein and object relations theory

Last updated 8 November 2026. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.