Object relations theory
客体关系理论
What is object relations theory?
Object relations theory is a family of psychoanalytic theories holding that the need to relate to others, more than instinctual drives, is central to personality and motivation.[1][2] Early interactions with caregivers are internalized as mental representations of self and others that shape later relationships.[2]
Kernberg’s two sets of units (schematic)
The British school and attachment theory
In treatment
The top panel is a schematic of Kernberg’s account of the two early sets of units; it does not depict any one person’s experience.
Schematic. Two rows at the top, each with a self representation on the left, an object representation on the right, and a line between them labeled with the affect that links them. The first row is the idealized set: a loved, satisfied self facing an idealized, giving other, linked by love and satisfaction. The second is the all-bad set: a frustrated, enraged or suffering self facing a frustrating or aggressive other, linked by pain and rage. A dashed line between the rows reads “kept apart at first (splitting).” An arrow to the right points to integration, in which one person can be both good and bad; an arrow below points to replay in relationships, where self and object roles can swap. Four cards in the middle: Klein’s internal objects, Fairbairn’s relationships before impulses, Winnicott’s good-enough mother, and Bowlby’s turn to real attachment relationships. Two cards at the bottom: how transference-focused psychotherapy works, and what randomized trials found.
Save as image (PNG) This figure image is licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse it with credit and a link back to this page. How to reuse
Key points
- W. R. D. Fairbairn coined the name in 1943–1944. Melanie Klein laid the foundations, holding that the inner world is populated by “internal objects” formed from early relationships.[2]
- Otto Kernberg’s basic unit, the self–object–affect unit, links a self representation and an object representation through an affect. All-good and all-bad units are at first internalized separately.[2]
- In this view, the two sets of units fail to integrate in borderline personality disorder. Transference-focused psychotherapy (TFP) tracks how they replay in the transference and helps integrate them.[3]
- TFP has three randomized trials, with symptom gains not significantly different from DBT or mentalization-based treatment.[3] In one, only the TFP group showed more people classified as securely attached.[4]
An example
Jay’s father often found fault with him. At work, when his manager Ms. Wang points out one error in a report, Jay feels belittled again and rushes to defend himself. Later he notices he uses his father’s tone with his intern. In object relations terms, he has stood at both ends of one critic–criticized pair.
Misreadings and limits
“Object” can sound like a thing, but here it means a person, activity or thing that serves as a source of connection, real or imagined.[1] Nor is this one unified theory: Bowlby, once supervised by Klein, objected that she attended to the child’s inner fantasy and neglected the real relationship with the mother; his attachment theory stresses behavior and interpersonal patterns.[2]
Sources
- 1 American Psychological Association (2023). Object relations theory; Object relations. APA Dictionary of Psychology (entries updated April 19, 2018, and November 15, 2023). View source
- 2 International Psychoanalytical Association (n.d.). Object relations theories (Tri-Regional Entry; Inter-Regional Editorial Board: S. Groarke, L. Tobias, & A. Fainstein). IPA Inter-Regional Encyclopedic Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, pp. 556–638. View source An online dictionary compiled by the International Psychoanalytical Association under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence; the entry is undated, and page numbers follow the online edition.
- 3 Leichsenring, F., Fonagy, P., Heim, N., Kernberg, O. F., Leweke, F., Luyten, P., Salzer, S., Spitzer, C., & Steinert, C. (2024). Borderline personality disorder: A comprehensive review of diagnosis and clinical presentation, etiology, treatment, and current controversies. World Psychiatry, 23(1), 4–25. doi:10.1002/wps.21156
- 4 Levy, K. N., Meehan, K. B., Kelly, K. M., Reynoso, J. S., Weber, M., Clarkin, J. F., & Kernberg, O. F. (2006). Change in attachment patterns and reflective function in a randomized control trial of transference-focused psychotherapy for borderline personality disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 74(6), 1027–1040. doi:10.1037/0022-006X.74.6.1027
Last checked against sources: October 28, 2026