THEORETICAL ARENA OF OBJECT RELATIONS-Attachment theory

Attachment theory both parallels and sets the basis for the psychoanalytic object relation theories, both with regard to the conceptualization of motivation and the understanding of the origins of psychological disturbances and behaviors.

One of the outstanding contributors to the theoretical views was John Bowlby, M.D. a pediatrician specializing in adolescent emotional problems,  who ran a school for disturbed children during and after the world war II  in England.

His view  highlighted the  importance of the early secure relationship, in particular  the emotional  ties to whoever the developing child has interactions, nurse, mother or anyone, in the contact world of  growing child.

. His paper 'The Influence of Early Environment in the development of neurosis and neurotic character; 1940; Int. Journal of Psychoanal., XXI, 1-25)'  details the effect of early experience, or the  lack of it, upon character development is considered a classic on the subject.

 Bowlby pointed out that traditional psychoanalytic theory fails to explain both the intense attachment to mother figure and  young children's dramatic responses to separation.

In explanation, Bowlby had identified three phases of separation response:

1. Protest. (related to separation anxiety)

2. Despair. (related to grief and mourning)

3. Detachment or denial. (related to which defense is  taken)

He postulates that behind this kind of damaging results from lack or security and separation events is  the  universal human need to form close affection bonds.

In the present theoretical arena of psychoanalysis, 'attachment theory',  is also a persons,  'OBJECT RELATIONS',  when speaking of adolescents and adults.

Of note, Anna Freud,  Melonie Klien and others, of the war time 'British School',  were offering complex theories based on analysis of play and fantasy worlds of children, mostly  in treatment for anxiety states associated with war time conditions.

Bowlby’s main emphasis and deviation from these others was his  focus on and  about ' today's problems' and psychological disturbances,   as being rooted in those things in the  interpersonal and traumatic past as being the causative  origins. He believed causal connections when understood by the individual was the effective  method for offering help.In this he took a practical approach and separated himself from the mainstream of psychoanalysis of his day.