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[[part-object]] ([[French]]: ''[[objet partiel]]'') ==Melanie Klein==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 byrelating 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 objects rather than collections of separate parts. ==Sigmund Freud== While the term '[[part-object]]' was first introduced by the [[Kleinian]] [[school]] of [[psychoanalysis]], the origins of the concept can be traced back to [[Karl Abraham]]'s work and ultimately to [[Freud]]. For example, when [[Freud]] states that [[partial drive]]s are directed towards [[object]]s such as the [[breast]] or [[faeces]], these are clearly [[part-object]]s. [[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]]. ==Jacques Lacan==The concept of the [[part-object]] plays an important part in [[Lacan]]'s work from early on. [[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 [[partial drives]], so all [[objects]] are necessarily[[partial objects]]. [[Lacan]]'s focus on the [[part-object]] is clear evidence of the important [[Klein]]ian influences in his work. 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 [[signifying]] [[system]] of [[language]]. In addition to the [[partial object]]s already discovered by [[psychoanalytic theory]] before [[Lacan]] (the [[breast]], the [[faeces]], the [[phallus]] as [[imaginary]] [[object]], and the [[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 [[completeness]]. [[Lacan]]'s conceptualisation of the [[part-object]] is modified with the development around 1963-4 of the concept of ''[[objet petit a]]'' as the [[cause]] of [[desire]]. Now each [[partial object]] becomes an [[object]] by virtue of the fact that the [[subject]] takes it for the [[object]] of [[desire]], ''[[objet petit a]]''.<ref>{{Sll}} p.104</ref> From this point on in his work, [[Lacan]] usually restricts his discussion of [[part-object]]s to only four: # the [[voice]], # the [[gaze]], # the [[breast]] and #redirect [[partial faeces]]. ==Quotes== '[[Partial object]]' is [[Klein]]ian term that "has never been subjected to criticism since [[Karl Abraham]] introduced it."<ref>1977. p. 283/687</ref> ==See Also==* [[Karl Abraham]] ==References==<references/>[[Zizek|Žižek, Slavoj]]. [[The Parallax View]]. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2006. p.115-117 [[Category:Freudian psychology]][[Category:Sigmund Freud]][[Category:Jacques Lacan]][[Category:Terms]][[Category:Concepts]][[Category:Psychoanalysis]][[Category:Theory]][[Category:Psychoanalytic theory]][[Category:Help]][[Category:New]][[Category:Dictionary]]
