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==History==
The initial line of thought emerged in 1917 with [[Sándor Ferenczi|Ferenczi]] and, early in the 1930s, [[Harry Stack Sullivan|Sullivan]], coiner of the term "interpersonal".<ref>Ogden, T. (2005). ''This Art of Psychoanalysis: Dreaming undreamt dreams and interrupted cries''. NY: Routledge. (p. 27).</ref> British psychologists [[Melanie Klein]], [[Donald Winnicott]], [[Harry Guntrip]], Scott Stuart, and others extended object relations theory during the 1940s and 1950s.; in 1952, [[Ronald Fairbairn]] in 1952 independently formulated his theory of object relations.<ref name=":2">Fairbairn, W.R.D. (1952). ''Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality''. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1981.</ref>
The term has been used in many different contexts, which led to different connotations and denotations.<ref name=":0" /> While Fairbairn popularized the term "object relations", Melanie Klein's work tends to be most commonly identified with the terms "object relations theory" and "British object relations", at least in contemporary North America, though the influence of 'what is known as the [[British Independent Group (psychoanalysis)|''British independentIndependent perspective''Group]], which—which argued that the primary motivation of the child is object seeking rather than drive gratification',<ref>Glen O. Gabbard, ''Long-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy'' (Washington, DC 2010) p. 12</ref> is—is becoming increasingly recognized. Klein felt that the psychodynamic battleground that Freud proposed occurs very early in life, during infancy. Furthermore, its origins are different from those that Freud proposed. The interactions between infant and mother are so deep and intense that they form the focus of the infant's structure of drives. Some of these interactions provoke anger and frustration; others provoke strong emotions of dependence as the child begins to recognize the mother is more than a breast from which to feed. These reactions threaten to overwhelm the individuality of the infant. The way in which the infant resolves the conflict, Klein believed, is reflected in the adult's personality.<ref>Gomez, 1997 p. 12</ref>
[[Sigmund Freud|Freud]] originally identified people in a subject's environment with the term "object" to identify people as the object of drives. Fairbairn took a radical departure from Freud by positing that humans were not seeking satisfaction of the drive, but actually seek the satisfaction that comes in being in relation to real others. Klein and Fairbairn were working along similar lines, but unlike Fairbairn, Klein always held that she was not departing from Freudian theory, but simply elaborating early developmental phenomena consistent with Freudian theory.
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===Fairbairn's theory of attachment===
Fairbairn revised much of Freud's model of the mind. He identified how people who were abused as children internalize that experience.; Fairbairn'sthe "moral defense" is the tendency seen in survivors of abuse to take all the bad upon themselves, each believingyielding hethe ismoral morally badevil so histhe caretaker -object can be regarded as good. This is a use of [[Splitting (psychology)|splitting]] as a defense to maintain an attachment relationship in an unsafe world. In one particular example of this circumstance, Fairbairn introduced a four-year-old girl withwho had suffered a broken arm from her mother to a doctor friend of his., Hewho told the little girl that they were going to find her a new mommyparent. "OhThe no!"girl, thenow girlpanicked cried.and "Iunhappy, wantreplied mythat she wanted her "real mommy.", before Fairbairn asked "You mean the mommy that broke your arm?" Fairbairn asked. "I was bad," the girl replied.;<ref name="Columbia University Press">{{cite book|last1=Celani|first1=David|title=Fairbairn's Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting|date=2010|publisher=Columbia University Press|isbn=978-0231149075}}</ref> Shefrom this exchange, he theorized that she needed to believe that her love object (mother) was allentirely good, so that sheto couldfirmly believe she would one day receive the love and nurturing she needed.needed—in Ifan sheattempt acceptedto herrecuperate motherthese was badneeds, then she would be bereft and alone in the world, an intolerable state. She used the Moralmoral Defensedefense to make ''herself'' bad, butin order to preserve her mother's goodness.
==Kleinian object relations theory==
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