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=====Melanie Klein==========Child Development=====According to [[Melanie Klein]], the [[infant]]'s underdeveloped capacity for [[perception]], together with the fact that he is only concerned with his immediate gratifications, means that the [[subject]] begins by relating only to a part of a person rather than the whole. The primordial [[part-object]] is, according to [[Klein]], the [[mother]]'s [[breast]]. As the [[child]]'s [[visual]] [[apparatus]] develops, so also does his capacity to perceive [[people]] as whole [[object]]s rather than collections of [[separate]] parts.
=====Partial Drives=====
For example, when [[Freud]] states that [[drive|partial drive]]s are directed towards [[object]]s such as the [[breast]] or [[part-object|faeces]], these are clearly [[part-object]]s.
=====Penis=====[[Freud]] also implies that the [[penis]] is a [[part-object]] in his [[discussion ]] of the [[castration complex]] (in which the [[penis]] is imagined as a separable [[organ]]) and in his discussion of [[fetishism]].
The concept of the [[part-object]] plays an important part in [[Lacan]]'s work from early on.
=====Object-Relations Theory=====[[Lacan]] finds the concept of the [[part-object]] particularly useful in his criticism of [[object-relations theory]], which he attacks for attributing a [[false ]] [[sense ]] of [[completeness ]] to the [[object]].
In opposition to this tendency, [[Lacan]] argues that just as all [[drives]] are [[drive|partial drives]], so all [[objects]] are necessarily
[[part-objects]].
[[Lacan]]'s focus on the [[part-object]] is clear evidence of the important [[Klein]]ian influences in his work.
=====Partiality=====However, whereas [[Klein]] defines these [[object]]s as [[partial ]] because they are only part of a [[whole]] [[object]], [[Lacan]] takes a different view. They are partial, he argues, "not because these objects are part of a [[total ]] object, the body, but because they [[represent ]] only partially the function that produces [[them]]."<ref>{{E}} p.315</ref> In other words, in the [[unconscious]] only the [[pleasure]]-giving function of these [[object]]s is represented, while their [[biological]] function is not represented. Furthermore, [[Lacan]] argues that what isolates certain parts of the[[body]] as a [[part-object]] is not any [[biological]] given but the [[signification|signifying]] [[system]] of [[language]]. --
=====Biology=====
In [[other]] [[words]], in the [[unconscious]] only the [[pleasure]]-giving function of these [[object]]s is represented, while their [[biological]] function is not represented. Furthermore, [[Lacan]] argues that what isolates certain parts of the [[body]] as a [[part-object]] is not any [[biological]] given but the [[signification|signifying]] [[system]] of [[language]].
===Partial Objects===In addition to the [[partial object]]s already discovered by [[psychoanalytic theory]] before [[Lacan]] (the [[breast]], the [[part-object|faeces]], the [[phallus]] as [[imaginary]] [[object]], and the [[part-object|urinary flow]]), [[Lacan]] adds (in 1960) several more: the [[phoneme]], the [[gaze]], the voice and the [[nothing]].<ref>{{E}} p.315</ref> These [[partial object]]s all have one feature in common: "they have no [[specular]] [[image]]."<ref>{{E}} p. 315</ref> In other words, they are precisely that which cannot be assimilated into the [[subject]]'s [[narcissistic]] [[illusion]] of [[lack|completeness]].
From this point on in his work, [[Lacan]] usually restricts his discussion of [[part-object]]s to only four:
==Quotes==
"[[Partial object]]" is [[Klein]]ian term that "has never been subjected to criticism since [[Karl Abraham]] introduced it."<ref>1977. {{E}} p. 283/, 687</ref>
==See Also==
{{See}}* [[Karl AbrahamBiology]]* [[Desire]]||* [[Kleinian psychoanalysis]]* [[Language]]||* [[Mother]]* [[Object-relations theory]]||* ''[[Objet (petit) a]]''* [[Unconscious]]{{Also}}
==References==
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[[Category:Freudian psychology]]
[[Category:Sigmund Freud]]
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[[Category:Psychoanalytic theory]]
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