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'''[[Object ]] relations [[theory]]''' is the [[idea ]] that the ego-[[self ]] [[exists ]] only in relation to [[other ]] [[objects]], which may be [[external ]] or [[internal]]. The internal objects are internalized versions of external objects, primarily formed from early interactions with the [[parents]]. There are [[three ]] fundamental "affects" that can [[exist ]] between the self and the other - attachment, [[frustration]], and [[rejection]]. These affects are [[universal ]] emotional states that are major building blocks of the [[personality]]. [[Object relations ]] theory was pioneered in the 1940's and 50's by British psychologists [[Ronald Fairbairn]], [[Winnicott|D.W. Winnicott]], [[Harry Guntrip]], and [[others]].

[[Freud]] developed the [[concept ]] [[object relation]] to

that [[bodily ]] [[drive|drives]] [[satisfy ]] their [[need ]] through a medium, an object, on a specific locus. The central [[thesis ]] in [[Melanie Klein]]'s [[object relations theory ]] was that objects play a decisive [[role ]] in the [[development ]] of a [[subject ]] and can be either [[part-object|part-objects]] or [[whole-object|whole-objects]], i.e. a single [[organ ]] (a [[mother]]'s [[breast]]) or a [[whole ]] person (a mother). Consequently both a mother or just the mother's breast can be the locus of [[satisfaction ]] for a [[drive]]. Furthermore, according to [[traditional psychoanalysis]], there are at least two types of [[drives]], the [[libido]] ([[mythical ]] [[counterpart]]: [[Eros]]), and the [[death]] drive (mythical counterpart: [[Thanatos]]). Thus, the objects can be receivers of both [[love]] and [[hate]], the [[affective ]] effects of the [[libido]] and the [[death drive]].

Until the 1970s, however, few American [[psychoanalysts ]] were influenced by the [[school ]] of [[Melanie Klein]], on the one hand, who constituted an opposite polarity to the school of [[Anna Freud]] (which dominated American [[psychoanalysis ]] in [[1940s]], [[1950s]], and [[1960s]] and was represented in the US by [[Hartmann]], [[Kris]], [[Loewenstein]], Rapaport, Erikson, Jacobson, and Mahler), and, on the other hand, the "middle group" who fell between Anna Freud and Melanie [[Klein]], and was influenced by the British [[schools ]] of [[Michael Balint]], [[Donald Winnicott]], and [[Ronald Fairbairn]]. The strong animosity in England between the school of Anna Freud and that of Melanie Klein was transplanted to the US, where the Anna Freud group dominated totally until the [[1970s]], when new interpersonal psychoanalysis arose partly from [[ideas ]] of [[culturalist ]] psychoanalysis, influenced also by [[Ego psychology]], and partly by British theories which have also entered under the broad terminology of "British object relations theories".

[[Recent ]] decades in [[developmental ]] [[psychological ]] research, for example on the onset of a "[[Theory of mind#Theory of Mind - Understanding that others have minds with separate beliefs desires and intentions|theory of mind]]" in [[children]], has suggested that the [[formation ]] of [[mental ]] [[world ]] is enabled by the [[infant]]-parent interpersonal interaction which was the main thesis of British [[object-relations ]] [[tradition ]] (e.g. Fairbairn, 1952).

[[Ronald Fairbairn|Fairbairn]] also discovered the psychological condition of dysfunctional interpersonal attachment of abused children to their abusing parents, which is now explained by [[Stockholm Syndrome]] as genetically programed neurobiological psychological response to a [[situation ]] where the [[victim ]] perceives her or his [[life ]] (acutely or chronically) depends on their captor's [[good ]] will.

Fairbairn, W. R. D., (1952). An [[Object-Relations Theory ]] of the Personality. New York: Basic Books.

Fairbairn, W. R. D., (1952). Endopsychic [[structure ]] considered in [[terms ]] of object relationships, [[London]].