Page 168 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

The Work and Thinking of David Benner

relational nature. telligible by object relations theory is the fact
For Fairbairn (1954), people do not seek that children do not simply or even primarily
discharge of biological drives, but rather they feel angry when their parents fail them in se-
seek relationships. This object-seeking quality rious ways. Instead they feel shame. The child
of humans describes their most basic drive. Ple- who was placed for adoption by a young single
asurable tension discharge is an accompaniment mother who was unable to meet the parenting
of relationships. Similarly, aggression is not a responsibilities will, in later life, probably feel
basic drive but rather a reaction to frustration deep shame associated with thoughts such as “I
in object-relationships. However, people do not must have been an awful child for my mother
just seek relationships, they seek good relation- to have to give me up.* Rather than feel anger
ships. Fairbairn describes individuals as lon- and experience the pain of imperfect parents,
ging for a perfect father and perfect mother. The the child through identification purges the
Christian understands this longing as reflective parent of badness, takes this upon self and feels
of our intended relationship to God. All long for shame and lessened self-worth. It is also intere-
a perfect father-mother and yet all experience sting to note how the parent is viewed: Typically
imperfect, limited parents. The frustration pro- the parent is idealized and seen as the longed-
duced by encountering good parents who also for perfect parent. This is also seen in children
have bad or frustrating qualities sets in motion who are removed from a child- abusing home.
a complex intrapsychic process wherein people Once again the badness of the parent is inter-
try to make relationships that more closely ap- nalized anti the parent, now purged of this, is
proximate the ideal for which they long. idealized. The pattern frequently involves the
child wanting to return to the home, denying
To describe in detail the process by which this the problems. They are registered, however, on
occurs would lead too far from the present fo- the intrapsychic structure of the child where the
cus (see Fairbairn. 1954). The major step in the internalized and split object representations de-
process is hypothesized to be the development value self- worth and produce shame.
of internal object representations of external
objects, particularly of bad or frustrating ob- It appears that woven deep within the basic fa-
jects. Fairbairn explains the child’s paradoxical bric of personality may be a tendency to take
action of internalizing, rather than rejecting, the the badness of significant others upon oneself
frustrating object by suggesting that the child in order to purge them of their evil. Perhaps this
cannot afford to reject the parent who is still is part of the image of God—part of the way in
needed: Better a bad parent than no parent at which humans, like him, tend to relate to others.
all. Furthermore, Fairbairn suggests that the in- Obviously the internalization of someone else`s
ternalization of the object is both an attempt to badness does not produce any objective pur-
control the parent and an attempt to purge the ging or atonement for them. It is here that the
parent‘s badness through taking this badness divine incarnation breaks down as an analogy
into oneself. The child, according to Fairbairn for any human activity. There is nothing that in-
(1954), would „rather be bad himself than have dividuals can do to atone for their own sins or
bad objects.... One of his motives in becoming for those of anyone else. However, perhaps this
bad is to make his objects good“ (p. 65). tendency to attempt to purge others of their evil
This purgative process is only one possible re- reflects something of the imago Dei.
sponse to predominately frustrating parents. It For the child, Fairbairn (1954) suggests that
is, however, a major way in which the infant at- this tendency reveals the longing for a perfect
tempts to cope with less than perfect objects in parent. In the mature adult where needs are
the search for the goo and ideal object. reasonably well met in relationships, might it
Stepping back from this highly speculative me- represent a more altruistic desire to help the
tapsychology, it is necessary to determine if it other? This question becomes significant then
corresponds to anything observable. One fre- in considering the implications of this concept
quently made observation which is made in- for the therapy process.

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