The Role of Sexuality in Sadism: Object Relations and Drive Theory Perspectives

The sexual components of sadism are conceptualized within the contexts of different forms of sadism. In aggression-drive sadism, sexuality is seen as a generalization of instinctual reactivity. Parallels are presented of such spillover between aggression and anxiety and even between aggression and oral impulses, with the notion that any areas of excitation or partial impulses can be energized by the acute release of energy in another domain. Another dynamic is presented for re-enactment sadists, in which the sexuality has a relational meaning. In such cases, sexuality is intertwined with the aggression, as the sadistic ritual actually re-evokes an original trauma that features these elements. It is further agued that the sexuality in these two sadistic modes is not consistent. The instinctual spillover that occurs in hostile psychopathy is psychosexually rooted in phallic functioning, in which relational implications are absent, while the sexuality in re-enacted sadism is genitally based, and is intrinsically linked to an imagined emotional relationship with the victim that is intended to ameliorate and undo past trauma that haunt the perpetrator.     

Defense Mechanisms and Object Relations as Factors in Marital Satisfaction

Two hundred and seven married men and 202 married women completed the Defense Mechanisms Inventory (DMI; Ihilevich & Gleser, 1986) and the Marital Satisfaction Inventory (MSI; Snyder, 1981). The DMI was scored to yield defensive as well as object relations indices. Results show that Turning Against the Object exacerbates conflict while Principalization minimizes it. Marital satisfaction is seen as correlated with mastery of object relations. Results are discussed in the context of DMI psychometrics.     

Object Relations Theory and Marital Interaction

SUMMARY

A model of marital communication based on object relations theory is presented, and its utility in integrating and organizing findings from psychological research on marital interaction is described. The model includes context and process components. The context model describes stages of development and lines of development in marriage that jointly influence the sorts of situations that come to the couple's attention. The process model describes a path that leads from situations to each partner's representation of the situation, and then to the acts of communication that form the partners' interaction. The influence of internal object representations on the process of communication is depicted. A feedback loop in the model implies both the possibility of change and also the potential limits on change at several levels of the marital system. Possible paths of unconscious communication are described that reflect the more dynamic aspects of object relations theory. Principal findings from psychological research on marital interaction, marital therapy, and. social cognition are reviewed, and shown to be consistent with the model. Ways that constructs from object relations theory may clarify questions in behavioral models of marital interaction are discussed. The difference between proving the validity of a model and showing its Consistency with the known facts is noted     

Object Relations Theory Revisited:

Object relations theory has been used effectively by private social work practitioners in both diagnosis and treatment applications. This article presents an overview of the important concepts in object relations theory and developmental theory, with an emphasis on synthesizing such concepts for direct use in clinical practice.     

Object Relations Psychoanalysis as Political Theory

This article examines the political contents of object relations psychoanalysis, a theory that perceives dependence as the natural state of all humans. Unlike the views advanced by the classical state-of-nature models of Locke, Hobbes, and Rousseau, object relations perceives humans in their original state as already grouped and driven by an urge to associate. Company (rather than privacy, property, or political participation) stands out as the basic right, and all the other rights follow on it as instruments for fulfilling it. The primacy of care lends itself to the justification of distributive measures meant to bolster family cohesion and individual confidence at the expense of the open market. The theory is therefore compatible with the premises of the social-democratic welfare state.     

拜昂客体关系理论的精神病学思想

拜昂是20世纪后半期最具影响力的精神分析客体关系思想家和实践者之一.在精神病理学方面,他以一种温和的方式在咨询室中引起了一场分析师理解患者的革命.拜昂认为,精神病是先天倾向与后天环境相互作用的结果;人格既包括精神病部分也包括非精神病部分;在治疗中,分析师应该保持一种无记无欲的态度,以达到精神分析的目标.     

Object Relations Theory and Technique Applied to Sex and Marital Therapy

This paper demonstrates integrating psychoanalysis and behavioral techniques in sexual and marital therapy. It particularly illustrates how Fairbairn's (1943) concept of the return of the repressed can help a couple reclaim lost unconscious parts of themselves, and extensive use of countertransference during sex and marital therapy.     

Defense Mechanisms in Rational Emotive Cognitive Behavior Therapy Personality Theory

It has been argued that if rational emotive cognitive behavior therapy (RECBT) is to survive and prosper in the present century, the personality theory underlying it requires further development, greater clarification, and more comprehensiveness. In this article it is argued that RECBT personality theory could be further broadened and strengthened by attempting to incorporate the classic defense mechanisms of psychoanalytic theory via stripping them away from Freud’s hypothetical dynamic unconscious and instead resting them on Ellis’s concept of the unconscious. First, to provide proper context, the unconscious and the defense mechanisms are briefly discussed. Then attention is turned to the 10 classic defense mechanisms, discussed one by one. In each described mechanism, the mechanism in question is defined, then placed in the framework of RECBT personality theory along with ample examples. Then the clinical implications of each mechanism are briefly explored, with RECBT practitioners in mind. It is hoped that this discussion will, in some way, help to broaden and strengthen RECBT theory and practice.     

Defensiveness and Defense Mechanisms

This introduction to the Journal of Personality's special issue on the topic of defense mechanisms raises the question of why defenses have been largely overlooked in personality research. Although defenses were originally discussed in the context of psychopathology, for the past 60 years psychodynamically oriented psychologists have understood that defenses play an important part in normal psychological development. Recently, psychologists outside the field of personality have incorporated the ideas of unconscious mental processes and of defenses into their research programs. In this issue, personality researchers discuss their ideas about defense mechanisms, organized around three topical areas: current conceptualizations of defense, the measurement of defense mechanisms, and the integration of defense mechanisms into personality research. The issue concludes with a commentary on these articles and provides suggestions for future work.     

Immunizing Strategies and Epistemic Defense Mechanisms

An immunizing strategy is an argument brought forward in support of a belief system, though independent from that belief system, which makes it more or less invulnerable to rational argumentation and/or empirical evidence. By contrast, an epistemic defense mechanism is defined as a structural feature of a belief system which has the same effect of deflecting arguments and evidence. We discuss the remarkable recurrence of certain patterns of immunizing strategies and defense mechanisms in pseudoscience and other belief systems. Five different types will be distinguished and analyzed, with examples drawn from widely different domains. The difference between immunizing strategies and defense mechanisms is analyzed, and their epistemological status is discussed. Our classification sheds new light on the various ways in which belief systems may achieve invulnerability against empirical evidence and rational criticism, and we propose our analysis as part of an explanation of these belief systems’ enduring appeal and tenacity.     

Object Relations and the Development of Values

Values acquisition as a part of the therapeutic interaction that occurs between client and therapist is a clear and focused representation of what naturally occurs between people who influence one another. As the relationship develops in therapy, and the client begins to trust the therapist, he or she also becomes inclined to emulate that therapist in greater or lesser degrees. From an object relations point of view, a developmental process unfolds between these two people, which reflects the means by which a person realizes his or her value system. The discussion begins with the etiology of identification, because according to this viewpoint, the process described above begins, and is supported by, the dynamics of identification. Referring specifically to the ideas of Heinz Kohut, the authors describe the mechanisms of idealization as the intrapsychic process most basic to the final formation of values.     

Object Theory and Modal Meinongianism

In this paper, we compare two theories, modal Meinongianism (MM) and object theory (OT), with respect to several issues that have been discussed recently in the literature. In particular, we raise some objections for MM, undermine some of the objections that its defenders raise for OT, and we point out some virtues of the latter with respect to the former.     

Personality, Personality Disorders, and Defense Mechanisms

The prototype approach was used to assess the presence of personality features associated with borderline, narcissistic, histrionic, and psychopathic personality syndromes in a sample of 91 young adults from the Block and Block (1980) longitudinal study. These personality prototypes were found to be related to the use of denial and projection, and especially to the immature manifestations of those defenses, in ways consistent with theory.