PAUL C. QUINN
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- January 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199264339
- eISBN:
- 9780191718519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199264339.003.0019
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Psycholinguistics / Neurolinguistics / Cognitive Linguistics
This chapter reviews evidence that infants can form category representations for spatial relations such as Above, Below, and Between. It discusses two developmental changes. First, category ...
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This chapter reviews evidence that infants can form category representations for spatial relations such as Above, Below, and Between. It discusses two developmental changes. First, category representations for different spatial relations may emerge at different points during development. Second, category representations for spatial relations may initially be limited to the objects depicting relations, but later become more abstract so that various object can be presented in the same relation and the equivalence of the relation is maintained despite this variation. The results are discussed in terms of what versus where processing systems, and the role of language in binding together object and spatial relation information.Less
This chapter reviews evidence that infants can form category representations for spatial relations such as Above, Below, and Between. It discusses two developmental changes. First, category representations for different spatial relations may emerge at different points during development. Second, category representations for spatial relations may initially be limited to the objects depicting relations, but later become more abstract so that various object can be presented in the same relation and the equivalence of the relation is maintained despite this variation. The results are discussed in terms of what versus where processing systems, and the role of language in binding together object and spatial relation information.
Paul Marshall
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- February 2006
- ISBN:
- 9780199279432
- eISBN:
- 9780191603440
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0199279438.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
The focus here is naturalistic explanations that put great weight on the functioning or malfunctioning of the brain or mind. R. C. Zaehner turned against nature mysticism and put forward several ...
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The focus here is naturalistic explanations that put great weight on the functioning or malfunctioning of the brain or mind. R. C. Zaehner turned against nature mysticism and put forward several unflattering explanations. He likened extrovertive experience to the mania of manic-depressive illness, but his most promising explanation calls upon an inner mental model of the world. Freud supposed that the extrovertive ‘oceanic feeling’ is a vestige of infantile ideation, and object-relations theorists have suggested that mystical experience aims to repair the psychological damage inflicted by childhood loss. There is good evidence that the brain plays some role in religious and mystical experiences, but the nature of the role is presently unclear. Neuropsychological theories due to V. S. Ramachandran, James Austin, and Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew Newberg are raised, but they do not deal convincingly with the full range of extrovertive phenomenology and are best regarded as provisional efforts that will be superseded by more sophisticated theories when neuroscientific understanding of brain function is better understood.Less
The focus here is naturalistic explanations that put great weight on the functioning or malfunctioning of the brain or mind. R. C. Zaehner turned against nature mysticism and put forward several unflattering explanations. He likened extrovertive experience to the mania of manic-depressive illness, but his most promising explanation calls upon an inner mental model of the world. Freud supposed that the extrovertive ‘oceanic feeling’ is a vestige of infantile ideation, and object-relations theorists have suggested that mystical experience aims to repair the psychological damage inflicted by childhood loss. There is good evidence that the brain plays some role in religious and mystical experiences, but the nature of the role is presently unclear. Neuropsychological theories due to V. S. Ramachandran, James Austin, and Eugene d’Aquili and Andrew Newberg are raised, but they do not deal convincingly with the full range of extrovertive phenomenology and are best regarded as provisional efforts that will be superseded by more sophisticated theories when neuroscientific understanding of brain function is better understood.
Nicholas Bauch
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029407
- eISBN:
- 9780262331166
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029407.003.0009
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Programming
This chapter takes a geographical perspective on a medical biotechnology known as Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). WBANs generate, transmit, store, and retrieve information about the biological ...
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This chapter takes a geographical perspective on a medical biotechnology known as Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). WBANs generate, transmit, store, and retrieve information about the biological functioning of patients from any location, allowing doctors to watch their symptoms from computer screens at different locations. The chapter asks what happens to the body when millions of data points are collected from it, and are stored in data center facilities that are increasingly altering urban and rural landscapes. The chapter builds from an ontology based in object relations (e.g. bodies and material, digital information) to propose a different ontology based in extensibility. The political project is potentially vast. When data centers and the landscapes in which they are situated become pieces of the body itself, they must be given greater care and protection by the law.Less
This chapter takes a geographical perspective on a medical biotechnology known as Wireless Body Area Network (WBAN). WBANs generate, transmit, store, and retrieve information about the biological functioning of patients from any location, allowing doctors to watch their symptoms from computer screens at different locations. The chapter asks what happens to the body when millions of data points are collected from it, and are stored in data center facilities that are increasingly altering urban and rural landscapes. The chapter builds from an ontology based in object relations (e.g. bodies and material, digital information) to propose a different ontology based in extensibility. The political project is potentially vast. When data centers and the landscapes in which they are situated become pieces of the body itself, they must be given greater care and protection by the law.
Penelope Maddy
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199273669
- eISBN:
- 9780191706264
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199273669.003.0018
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Logic/Philosophy of Mathematics
This chapter argues that ordinary physical objects stand in relations, with ground-consequent dependencies, and that these objects and relations admit of vague boundaries — all as in an abstract ...
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This chapter argues that ordinary physical objects stand in relations, with ground-consequent dependencies, and that these objects and relations admit of vague boundaries — all as in an abstract KF-structure. However, given our best understanding of quantum mechanics, the world in the small doesn't consist of spatiotemporal objects of the usual sort, and even the bare notion of an individual object is problematic; similar troubles arise for properties and relations and ground-consequent dependencies. Thus, the Second Philosopher fine-tunes the first component of her account to read: a rudimentary logic is true of the world insofar as it is a KF-world, and in many but not all respects, it is.Less
This chapter argues that ordinary physical objects stand in relations, with ground-consequent dependencies, and that these objects and relations admit of vague boundaries — all as in an abstract KF-structure. However, given our best understanding of quantum mechanics, the world in the small doesn't consist of spatiotemporal objects of the usual sort, and even the bare notion of an individual object is problematic; similar troubles arise for properties and relations and ground-consequent dependencies. Thus, the Second Philosopher fine-tunes the first component of her account to read: a rudimentary logic is true of the world insofar as it is a KF-world, and in many but not all respects, it is.
Otto F. Kernberg
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300101393
- eISBN:
- 9780300128369
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300101393.003.0002
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter discusses the different object relations theories in psychoanalysis. It presents different definitions of object relation theory and examines the controversies surrounding this topic. ...
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This chapter discusses the different object relations theories in psychoanalysis. It presents different definitions of object relation theory and examines the controversies surrounding this topic. The rest of the chapter takes a look at the representative object relations theories, as stated by Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, Harry Stack Sullivan, Edith Jacobson, Margaret Mahler, and Otto Kernberg.Less
This chapter discusses the different object relations theories in psychoanalysis. It presents different definitions of object relation theory and examines the controversies surrounding this topic. The rest of the chapter takes a look at the representative object relations theories, as stated by Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, Harry Stack Sullivan, Edith Jacobson, Margaret Mahler, and Otto Kernberg.
Alessandra Lemma, Mary Target, and Peter Fonagy
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199602452
- eISBN:
- 9780191729232
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199602452.003.0010
- Subject:
- Psychology, Clinical Psychology, Health Psychology
This chapter contextualizes the development of DIT in the climate of evidence-based practice, which has been broadly hostile to psychodynamic interventions. It outlines the rationale for the ...
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This chapter contextualizes the development of DIT in the climate of evidence-based practice, which has been broadly hostile to psychodynamic interventions. It outlines the rationale for the development of this protocol in the work on developing competence frameworks and the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative in the UK. Finally, it reviews its theoretical origins in attachment theory, object relations theory, and Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal psychoanalysis.Less
This chapter contextualizes the development of DIT in the climate of evidence-based practice, which has been broadly hostile to psychodynamic interventions. It outlines the rationale for the development of this protocol in the work on developing competence frameworks and the Improving Access to Psychological Therapies initiative in the UK. Finally, it reviews its theoretical origins in attachment theory, object relations theory, and Harry Stack Sullivan's interpersonal psychoanalysis.
Alison Sinclair
- Published in print:
- 1993
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198151906
- eISBN:
- 9780191672880
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198151906.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book explores the relationship between two statements as they apply to husbands, but also as they apply to the notion in general of being a man. The first is about the fate of man as husband, ...
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This book explores the relationship between two statements as they apply to husbands, but also as they apply to the notion in general of being a man. The first is about the fate of man as husband, and the second is about the (unspecified) things a man must do if he is to be a man. They express in brief form the much more extensive expectations about the nature of men as husbands and as deceived husbands that will be revealed by the literary examples to be discussed. What is fascinating about the portrayals of these husbands in their suffering of marital infidelity is the degree to which there are common characteristics to be observed in them, characteristics which suggest a generality of pattern, formation, and explanation. The book targets two main types of portrayal of the husband – the cuckold and the man of honour – and discusses the principal theoretical framework on object-relations theory.Less
This book explores the relationship between two statements as they apply to husbands, but also as they apply to the notion in general of being a man. The first is about the fate of man as husband, and the second is about the (unspecified) things a man must do if he is to be a man. They express in brief form the much more extensive expectations about the nature of men as husbands and as deceived husbands that will be revealed by the literary examples to be discussed. What is fascinating about the portrayals of these husbands in their suffering of marital infidelity is the degree to which there are common characteristics to be observed in them, characteristics which suggest a generality of pattern, formation, and explanation. The book targets two main types of portrayal of the husband – the cuckold and the man of honour – and discusses the principal theoretical framework on object-relations theory.
Bonnie Honig
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823276400
- eISBN:
- 9780823277063
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823276400.003.0003
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter examines “things” in Hannah Arendt's work in relation to D. W. Winnicott's object relations. Hoping to generate a lexicon for a political theory of public things, it analyzes Arendt's ...
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This chapter examines “things” in Hannah Arendt's work in relation to D. W. Winnicott's object relations. Hoping to generate a lexicon for a political theory of public things, it analyzes Arendt's The Human Condition together with Winnicott's work. It notes the convergence of Winnicott and Arendt on the value of care and concern for the world and for others and argues that there is a case to be made for seeing Arendt as a kind of object-relations theorist whose concepts, along with Winnicott's, call attention to the centrality of public things to democratic life. Read with Winnicott, Arendt emerges as a thinker who is committed to the power of thingness to stabilize the flux of nature and the contingency of action.Less
This chapter examines “things” in Hannah Arendt's work in relation to D. W. Winnicott's object relations. Hoping to generate a lexicon for a political theory of public things, it analyzes Arendt's The Human Condition together with Winnicott's work. It notes the convergence of Winnicott and Arendt on the value of care and concern for the world and for others and argues that there is a case to be made for seeing Arendt as a kind of object-relations theorist whose concepts, along with Winnicott's, call attention to the centrality of public things to democratic life. Read with Winnicott, Arendt emerges as a thinker who is committed to the power of thingness to stabilize the flux of nature and the contingency of action.
Lana Lin
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780823277711
- eISBN:
- 9780823280568
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823277711.003.0001
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Gender Studies
The Introduction lays out the key terms, organization, and methodology of the book. It details how Freud’s Jaw relies on psychoanalytic object relations theory—in particular theories on part-objects, ...
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The Introduction lays out the key terms, organization, and methodology of the book. It details how Freud’s Jaw relies on psychoanalytic object relations theory—in particular theories on part-objects, attachment and dependency (anaclisis), mourning, melancholia, and fetishism. These psychoanalytic concepts are mobilized to probe the psychic life and death of human and nonhuman objects and to throw light upon how illness initiates processes of objectification. Each chapter focuses on a different type of object, which bears a relation to the psychoanalytic lost object: the prosthetic object, the “first object” (the breast), love objects, and reparative objects. Through its examination of autopathographies, including the author’s own autopathographic observations, the book fleshes out a “subjectivity of survival.” For Sigmund Freud survival entailed maintenance and adjustment of his oral prostheses; for Audre Lorde it was bound up with a politics of self-preservation; for Eve Sedgwick it was explicitly a reparative project. The chapter explains how cancer carries psychoanalytic meaning, confirming that death has always occupied the core of psychoanalysis as a tragic discourse.Less
The Introduction lays out the key terms, organization, and methodology of the book. It details how Freud’s Jaw relies on psychoanalytic object relations theory—in particular theories on part-objects, attachment and dependency (anaclisis), mourning, melancholia, and fetishism. These psychoanalytic concepts are mobilized to probe the psychic life and death of human and nonhuman objects and to throw light upon how illness initiates processes of objectification. Each chapter focuses on a different type of object, which bears a relation to the psychoanalytic lost object: the prosthetic object, the “first object” (the breast), love objects, and reparative objects. Through its examination of autopathographies, including the author’s own autopathographic observations, the book fleshes out a “subjectivity of survival.” For Sigmund Freud survival entailed maintenance and adjustment of his oral prostheses; for Audre Lorde it was bound up with a politics of self-preservation; for Eve Sedgwick it was explicitly a reparative project. The chapter explains how cancer carries psychoanalytic meaning, confirming that death has always occupied the core of psychoanalysis as a tragic discourse.
Otto F. Kernberg
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300101393
- eISBN:
- 9780300128369
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300101393.001.0001
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This book reviews some of the recent developments and controversies in psychoanalytic theory and technique. Gathering together both previously published articles and extensive new material, it ...
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This book reviews some of the recent developments and controversies in psychoanalytic theory and technique. Gathering together both previously published articles and extensive new material, it examines such issues as the new psychoanalytic views of homosexuality, bisexuality, and the influence of gender in the analytic relationship. The author explores the application of psychoanalysis to non-clinical fields, including the problem of psychoanalytic research and its clinical implications, the validation of psychoanalytic interventions in the clinical process, and the challenges of psychoanalytic education. He shows how psychoanalysis can be helpful in addressing such cultural problems as socially-sanctioned violence, and asserts the continued relevance of object relations theory and its compatibility with Freud's dual drive theory.Less
This book reviews some of the recent developments and controversies in psychoanalytic theory and technique. Gathering together both previously published articles and extensive new material, it examines such issues as the new psychoanalytic views of homosexuality, bisexuality, and the influence of gender in the analytic relationship. The author explores the application of psychoanalysis to non-clinical fields, including the problem of psychoanalytic research and its clinical implications, the validation of psychoanalytic interventions in the clinical process, and the challenges of psychoanalytic education. He shows how psychoanalysis can be helpful in addressing such cultural problems as socially-sanctioned violence, and asserts the continued relevance of object relations theory and its compatibility with Freud's dual drive theory.
Bonnie Honig
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823276400
- eISBN:
- 9780823277063
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823276400.001.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
In the contemporary world of neoliberalism, efficiency is treated as the vehicle of political and economic health. State bureaucracy, but not corporate bureaucracy, is seen as inefficient, and ...
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In the contemporary world of neoliberalism, efficiency is treated as the vehicle of political and economic health. State bureaucracy, but not corporate bureaucracy, is seen as inefficient, and privatization is seen as a magic cure for social ills. This book asks whether democracy is possible in the absence of public services, spaces, and utilities. In other words, if neoliberalism leaves to democracy merely electoral majoritarianism and procedures of deliberation while divesting democratic states of their ownership of public things, what will the impact be? This book suggests that democracy postulates public things—infrastructure, monuments, libraries—that citizens use, care for, repair, and are gathered up by. To be “gathered up” refers to the work of D. W. Winnicott, the object relations psychoanalyst who popularized the idea of “transitional objects”—the toys, teddy bears, or favorite blankets by way of which infants come to understand themselves as unified selves with an inside and an outside in relation to others. The wager of this book is that the work transitional objects do for infants is analogously performed for democratic citizens by public things, which press us into object relations with others and with ourselves. The book attends also to the historically racial character of public things: public lands taken from indigenous peoples, access to public goods restricted to white majorities. The book underlines the material and psychological conditions necessary for object permanence and the reparative work needed for a more egalitarian democracy.Less
In the contemporary world of neoliberalism, efficiency is treated as the vehicle of political and economic health. State bureaucracy, but not corporate bureaucracy, is seen as inefficient, and privatization is seen as a magic cure for social ills. This book asks whether democracy is possible in the absence of public services, spaces, and utilities. In other words, if neoliberalism leaves to democracy merely electoral majoritarianism and procedures of deliberation while divesting democratic states of their ownership of public things, what will the impact be? This book suggests that democracy postulates public things—infrastructure, monuments, libraries—that citizens use, care for, repair, and are gathered up by. To be “gathered up” refers to the work of D. W. Winnicott, the object relations psychoanalyst who popularized the idea of “transitional objects”—the toys, teddy bears, or favorite blankets by way of which infants come to understand themselves as unified selves with an inside and an outside in relation to others. The wager of this book is that the work transitional objects do for infants is analogously performed for democratic citizens by public things, which press us into object relations with others and with ourselves. The book attends also to the historically racial character of public things: public lands taken from indigenous peoples, access to public goods restricted to white majorities. The book underlines the material and psychological conditions necessary for object permanence and the reparative work needed for a more egalitarian democracy.
Otto F. Kernberg
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300101393
- eISBN:
- 9780300128369
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300101393.003.0003
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter introduces drives, which are seen as very individualized, displaceable, and malleable unconscious motivational systems. It is believed that self psychology may actually be considered as ...
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This chapter introduces drives, which are seen as very individualized, displaceable, and malleable unconscious motivational systems. It is believed that self psychology may actually be considered as a form of object relations theory that rebuffs Sigmund Freud's theory of the drives. This chapter tries to unify a modern theory of drives with the developmental object relations theory model.Less
This chapter introduces drives, which are seen as very individualized, displaceable, and malleable unconscious motivational systems. It is believed that self psychology may actually be considered as a form of object relations theory that rebuffs Sigmund Freud's theory of the drives. This chapter tries to unify a modern theory of drives with the developmental object relations theory model.
Laurel McCabe
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199735426
- eISBN:
- 9780199914524
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199735426.003.0015
- Subject:
- Religion, Philosophy of Religion
This chapter explains the author's approach to teaching Jung. The chapter argues that Winnicott's notion of a “holding space” between mother and infant applies not only to the analytic dyad but also ...
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This chapter explains the author's approach to teaching Jung. The chapter argues that Winnicott's notion of a “holding space” between mother and infant applies not only to the analytic dyad but also to the atmosphere in a healthy classroom. A “good enough teacher” establishes secure psychological boundaries and principles of mutual respect to enable students to express themselves freely, raise questions, explore curiosities, and process new knowledge in highly efficient ways. Creating this kind of classroom environment is helpful in any discipline, but the chapter argues it is essential for teaching Jung. Experiential methods like dream interpretation, artistic play, and active imagination are the teaching tools properly suited to the kind of psychological processes that Jungian theory addresses. The best way to employ these tools is to create a sufficiently strong holding space in the classroom for students to learn from their own experiments and discoveries.Less
This chapter explains the author's approach to teaching Jung. The chapter argues that Winnicott's notion of a “holding space” between mother and infant applies not only to the analytic dyad but also to the atmosphere in a healthy classroom. A “good enough teacher” establishes secure psychological boundaries and principles of mutual respect to enable students to express themselves freely, raise questions, explore curiosities, and process new knowledge in highly efficient ways. Creating this kind of classroom environment is helpful in any discipline, but the chapter argues it is essential for teaching Jung. Experiential methods like dream interpretation, artistic play, and active imagination are the teaching tools properly suited to the kind of psychological processes that Jungian theory addresses. The best way to employ these tools is to create a sufficiently strong holding space in the classroom for students to learn from their own experiments and discoveries.
Jeremy Tambling
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719086731
- eISBN:
- 9781781705100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719086731.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter discusses one of Freud's most exciting followers, Melanie Klein, and object-relations theory, focusing on the role of the mother in psychoanalysis. It also shows Freud's discussion of ...
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This chapter discusses one of Freud's most exciting followers, Melanie Klein, and object-relations theory, focusing on the role of the mother in psychoanalysis. It also shows Freud's discussion of the Fort! Da! game in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and presents an account of what Klein's work means and its significance for producing thought about creativity, writing, and art. The chapter argues Klein's view that the child's desires are conflictual and ambivalent, and that the physical mother cannot symbolise them, either in her literality or because thinking depends on ambivalence. Meanwhile, Julia Kristeva contends that, in childbirth, women identify with their mothers, and, in that sense, privileges the role of the woman as mother over other forms of feminism which have been used to attempt to challenge that codification.Less
This chapter discusses one of Freud's most exciting followers, Melanie Klein, and object-relations theory, focusing on the role of the mother in psychoanalysis. It also shows Freud's discussion of the Fort! Da! game in Beyond the Pleasure Principle, and presents an account of what Klein's work means and its significance for producing thought about creativity, writing, and art. The chapter argues Klein's view that the child's desires are conflictual and ambivalent, and that the physical mother cannot symbolise them, either in her literality or because thinking depends on ambivalence. Meanwhile, Julia Kristeva contends that, in childbirth, women identify with their mothers, and, in that sense, privileges the role of the woman as mother over other forms of feminism which have been used to attempt to challenge that codification.
Bonnie Honig
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823276400
- eISBN:
- 9780823277063
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823276400.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This chapter discusses the role of public things in democratic theory and in democratic life. It examines the power of public things to stimulate the object relations of democratic collectivity by ...
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This chapter discusses the role of public things in democratic theory and in democratic life. It examines the power of public things to stimulate the object relations of democratic collectivity by drawing on the work of D. W. Winnicott, who argues that objects are central to the developing infant's capacity to relate to the world as an external reality. According to Winnicott, the baby needs its transitional object (the blanket, a toy) to supply it with a kind of object-ivity, or realness. The baby learns about the existence of an external world when it destroys/disavows the object and the object survives. This is object permanence. The chapter also considers the views of Wendy Brown, Michael Walzer, and Hannah Arendt in the context of decades of charting the almost always already overness of democracy's (or of politics') necessary conditions.Less
This chapter discusses the role of public things in democratic theory and in democratic life. It examines the power of public things to stimulate the object relations of democratic collectivity by drawing on the work of D. W. Winnicott, who argues that objects are central to the developing infant's capacity to relate to the world as an external reality. According to Winnicott, the baby needs its transitional object (the blanket, a toy) to supply it with a kind of object-ivity, or realness. The baby learns about the existence of an external world when it destroys/disavows the object and the object survives. This is object permanence. The chapter also considers the views of Wendy Brown, Michael Walzer, and Hannah Arendt in the context of decades of charting the almost always already overness of democracy's (or of politics') necessary conditions.
Jeremy Tambling
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780719086731
- eISBN:
- 9781781705100
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9780719086731.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This book presents a working through of what Freud really said, and why it is so important, with a chapter on Melanie Klein and object relations theory, and two chapters on Lacan and his work on the ...
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This book presents a working through of what Freud really said, and why it is so important, with a chapter on Melanie Klein and object relations theory, and two chapters on Lacan and his work on the unconscious as structured like a language. Investigating different forms of literature through a careful examination of Shakespeare, Blake, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and many other examples from literature, it makes an argument for taking literature and psychoanalysis together, and essential to each other. The book places both literature and psychoanalysis into the context of all that has been said about these subjects in recent debates in the theory of Derrida, Foucault and Žižek, and into the context of gender studies and queer theory.Less
This book presents a working through of what Freud really said, and why it is so important, with a chapter on Melanie Klein and object relations theory, and two chapters on Lacan and his work on the unconscious as structured like a language. Investigating different forms of literature through a careful examination of Shakespeare, Blake, the Sherlock Holmes stories, and many other examples from literature, it makes an argument for taking literature and psychoanalysis together, and essential to each other. The book places both literature and psychoanalysis into the context of all that has been said about these subjects in recent debates in the theory of Derrida, Foucault and Žižek, and into the context of gender studies and queer theory.
Graeme Pedlingham
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- September 2018
- ISBN:
- 9781526124340
- eISBN:
- 9781526136206
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781526124340.003.0009
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter explores the treatment of objects, things, in Marsh’s major Gothic works: The Beetle, The Goddess and The Joss. The increasing popularity in the late nineteenth century of collecting and ...
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This chapter explores the treatment of objects, things, in Marsh’s major Gothic works: The Beetle, The Goddess and The Joss. The increasing popularity in the late nineteenth century of collecting and consuming objects offers a context in which boundaries between people and things become uncertain, with objects seemingly exercising a disturbing agency. Marsh’s texts present mutually transforming encounters between objects and characters that question the stability of identity. The chapter suggests that whilst transgressing boundaries between self and not-self is often explored in critical analysis through mesmerism, a more appropriate conceptual framework for Marsh is provided by object relations psychoanalysis, and specifically Christopher Bollas’s notion of ‘transformational objects’. Developing this notion in relation to Bill Brown’s ‘thing theory’, the chapter identifies Marsh’s objects as ‘transformational things’, encounters with which often lead to terrifying breakdowns of selfhood, conveying a pervasive sense of existential horror and exposing the precariousness of late-nineteenth-century identity.Less
This chapter explores the treatment of objects, things, in Marsh’s major Gothic works: The Beetle, The Goddess and The Joss. The increasing popularity in the late nineteenth century of collecting and consuming objects offers a context in which boundaries between people and things become uncertain, with objects seemingly exercising a disturbing agency. Marsh’s texts present mutually transforming encounters between objects and characters that question the stability of identity. The chapter suggests that whilst transgressing boundaries between self and not-self is often explored in critical analysis through mesmerism, a more appropriate conceptual framework for Marsh is provided by object relations psychoanalysis, and specifically Christopher Bollas’s notion of ‘transformational objects’. Developing this notion in relation to Bill Brown’s ‘thing theory’, the chapter identifies Marsh’s objects as ‘transformational things’, encounters with which often lead to terrifying breakdowns of selfhood, conveying a pervasive sense of existential horror and exposing the precariousness of late-nineteenth-century identity.
Joanne Winning
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- May 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780748693252
- eISBN:
- 9781474412346
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748693252.003.0007
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
Chapter 6 examines how lesbian modernists oppose ideas of artistic impersonality through imbricating intimate affects in the production of their art objects. Objects considered here include literary ...
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Chapter 6 examines how lesbian modernists oppose ideas of artistic impersonality through imbricating intimate affects in the production of their art objects. Objects considered here include literary texts, paintings, houses and interiors. The chapter engages both Michael Hardt’s notion of “corporeal reason” and the object relations psychoanalysis of D.W. Winnicott and Marion Milner to argue that Virginia Woolf, Gluck, and Eileen Gray demonstrate an intense concern with the materiality of artistic production. This preoccupation with “stuff” conveys a visceral, affective appreciation of their art, which serves as a realm in which transgressive sexual desires and identities may be safely articulated. From Gray’s lacquered surfaces to Gluck’s plasticine frames, these modernist art objects are saturated with affect, serving as tangible, material expressions of bodily and emotional intimacy.Less
Chapter 6 examines how lesbian modernists oppose ideas of artistic impersonality through imbricating intimate affects in the production of their art objects. Objects considered here include literary texts, paintings, houses and interiors. The chapter engages both Michael Hardt’s notion of “corporeal reason” and the object relations psychoanalysis of D.W. Winnicott and Marion Milner to argue that Virginia Woolf, Gluck, and Eileen Gray demonstrate an intense concern with the materiality of artistic production. This preoccupation with “stuff” conveys a visceral, affective appreciation of their art, which serves as a realm in which transgressive sexual desires and identities may be safely articulated. From Gray’s lacquered surfaces to Gluck’s plasticine frames, these modernist art objects are saturated with affect, serving as tangible, material expressions of bodily and emotional intimacy.
Bonnie Honig
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780823276400
- eISBN:
- 9780823277063
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823276400.003.0001
- Subject:
- Political Science, Democratization
This book examines democratic theory in the context of object relations and asks whether democracy might be constitutively dependent on public things. Drawing on D. W. Winnicott's object-relations ...
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This book examines democratic theory in the context of object relations and asks whether democracy might be constitutively dependent on public things. Drawing on D. W. Winnicott's object-relations theory, in which objects have seemingly magic powers of integration and adhesion, and Hannah Arendt's account of the work of homo faber, the book thinks out loud about things (or “things out loud”) and their contributions to democratic politics. It considers Winnicott's “transitional objects,” “holding environments,” “object permanence,” and “good enough” (m)others as well as Arendt's ideas about the durability and permanence that “things” bring to the contingency and flux of the human world of action. The basic argument is that democracy is rooted in common love for, antipathy to, and contestation of public things.Less
This book examines democratic theory in the context of object relations and asks whether democracy might be constitutively dependent on public things. Drawing on D. W. Winnicott's object-relations theory, in which objects have seemingly magic powers of integration and adhesion, and Hannah Arendt's account of the work of homo faber, the book thinks out loud about things (or “things out loud”) and their contributions to democratic politics. It considers Winnicott's “transitional objects,” “holding environments,” “object permanence,” and “good enough” (m)others as well as Arendt's ideas about the durability and permanence that “things” bring to the contingency and flux of the human world of action. The basic argument is that democracy is rooted in common love for, antipathy to, and contestation of public things.
Nancy J. Hirschmann
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- August 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780199969104
- eISBN:
- 9780190225711
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199969104.003.0004
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Feminist Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter raises some concerns about relational autonomy that go back to its origin in psychoanalytic theory. Object relations theory suggests that just as the masculine model of “reactive ...
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This chapter raises some concerns about relational autonomy that go back to its origin in psychoanalytic theory. Object relations theory suggests that just as the masculine model of “reactive autonomy”— the dominant model of autonomy associated with Kant that results from particular childrearing practices — exaggerates individuality, the feminine model of relational autonomy arises through girls’ inadequate individuation. I argue that considering relational autonomy in tandem with a feminist conception of relational freedom that brings together elements of positive and negative liberty can help recuperate individuality for relational autonomy theorists. In particular, considering the social construction of desire, will, and identity can complicate our understanding of individuality so as to enhance its role in relational autonomy without capitulating to abstract individualism.Less
This chapter raises some concerns about relational autonomy that go back to its origin in psychoanalytic theory. Object relations theory suggests that just as the masculine model of “reactive autonomy”— the dominant model of autonomy associated with Kant that results from particular childrearing practices — exaggerates individuality, the feminine model of relational autonomy arises through girls’ inadequate individuation. I argue that considering relational autonomy in tandem with a feminist conception of relational freedom that brings together elements of positive and negative liberty can help recuperate individuality for relational autonomy theorists. In particular, considering the social construction of desire, will, and identity can complicate our understanding of individuality so as to enhance its role in relational autonomy without capitulating to abstract individualism.
