Psychological Growth for Ordinary People: The Psychology of the Self and Object Relations Theory

I. Clear Boundaries and the Separation of Tasks

Psychological boundaries and the separation of tasks are two psychological concepts that have become popular and widely accepted.

Countless people have begun to realize that blurred boundaries, entangled tasks, karmic entanglements, symbiosis between emotionally immature adults, and similar problems are central challenges in the psychological growth of East Asian people. They then become aware of the questions of “subjectivity,” being themselves, and loving themselves.

At their core, these are questions about relationships between people.

Behind them are two key bodies of theory used for analysis: Kohut’s self psychology and theory of self–selfobject relations, and Klein’s and Winnicott’s object relations theories. (An object is a significant external other, such as a parent or teacher; the separation of tasks was first proposed in Adler’s psychology of courage and responsibility, which I will not elaborate on here.)

Note: There are many schools of psychodynamics, with many complex and conflicting terms and models, and the field is still developing. Many people mix them together without a clear, systematic understanding. This is inevitable, but it is also dangerous. Those with formal training should approach the field with humility, and ordinary people without formal training should do the same. I have no formal training. This article is simply an attempt to organize things for my own use; omissions and errors are inevitable, and it is offered for reference only.

II. Kohut’s Self Psychology

Kohut’s theory is complex, but also simple. At its core are two subjects: the self and the selfobject.

1. The self is the inner core, what Horney calls the “real self.” The instability or weakness of the inner core that we often talk about is precisely what Kohut’s theory of the development of the self addresses. Instability, weakness, dissociation, and so on in the self can trigger various psychological defense mechanisms. This understanding has already become widespread.

(Previous article: “Everyone Suffers: Deep Pain and Breakdown—Answering an Online Reader’s Question About Why the World Treats Me So Badly”)

1. The selfobject is a wonderful, practically useful theory.

What is it? “Selfobjects are people or things experienced as part of the self that provide important functions for the self.” Positive experiences of relationships with others may outwardly look like “objects” (other people or things), but they are actually part of the self.

This explanation is somewhat abstract and complicated. Precisely for that reason, it is often confused with the object relations school’s “internal tasks,” “internal parents,” and “harsh superego.” This is also one of the major points of confusion and conflation among today’s psychoanalytic schools.

For example, when we think of Marx and Engels, the world feels warm and safe. When we think of our beloved, we feel grounded and reassured. When we think of green mountains, bamboo groves, and glass-clear water, we feel relaxed and peaceful. This can happen even if Marx or our beloved has died and the object is no longer there. This is a positive experience of a selfobject relationship: it looks external, but is actually part of our inner world.

As these examples show, the selfobject is a function, a capacity, a mechanism, and a process of psychological development.

One root of the selfobject concept and psychodynamics lies in mother–infant symbiosis and the sense of oneness: infants have no sense of boundaries. Through interactions with their mothers, infants gain positive experiences of selfobject relationships. There are three major experiences: mirroring (being seen and recognized), idealization (a connection with a calm, powerful, perfect force), and twinship/alter ego (a basic similarity to others, a sense of being alike and of connection). They then develop their own “selfobject” functions—mirroring, idealization, and twinship/alter ego—that is, the capacity for recognition, encouragement, soothing, and independence within the self.

It is actually quite easy to understand. Let us go through the logic again from another angle:

Experiences of selfobject relationships—mirroring, idealization, and alter ego—are profound experiences: experiences of peaceful connection and of harmonious coexistence with others and the world. Phenomenology and existentialism also place considerable importance on them. They are also experiences that human beings instinctively long for. Such experiences are closely connected with the development of “selfobject functions,” just as the experience of swimming is closely connected with the ability to swim and a healthy physique. It is like emerging from the amniotic fluid in the womb and needing to experience and develop the functions of the lungs and oxygen. We “consider” oxygen something “inside” our bodies; oxygen is part of us. We trust our lungs and oxygen—healthy selfobject functioning—and do not become anxious over a lack of oxygen, which corresponds to a failure in selfobject development.

A well-developed self has good selfobject functions—a healthy physique—and can avoid excessive dependence on objects or coexist with them in a healthy way, experiencing the functions of mirroring, idealization, and alter ego. Consider, for example, the friendship between Marx and Engels, two healthy personalities: their boundaries were clear, while they understood each other (mirroring), respected each other (idealization), and shared a connection (alter ego).

When the development of the self fails, however, one result is fragmentation, dissociation, and extreme defense mechanisms. Another is unclear boundaries and a blind search everywhere for selfobject experiences, leading people into all kinds of poor relationships: a. Poor mirroring: craving praise from others. b. Poor idealization: blindly worshipping or idealizing certain people, or immediately collapsing upon discovering that someone, such as a boyfriend or girlfriend, is less than ideal. c. Poor alter ego experiences: seeking an infant twin, indulging without limits, and disrespecting other people’s boundaries.

This is therefore also a useful theory for explaining people with NPD. Many familiar relationship problems can be seen here.

III. Object Relations Theory

Compared with Kohut’s somewhat abstract selfobject theory, Klein’s and Winnicott’s object relations theories are easier to understand:

A child’s relationship with an object—the mother—shapes their patterns of relating through certain mechanisms.

One core concept is the “internal object”: the psychological representation, or image, of an external object, such as the mother, within an individual’s mind, along with memories of the associated emotional experiences. An example is a “harsh father.”

Put this way, it is somewhat abstract and easy to misunderstand.

Another core concept is the “internalized bad object.” Infants have a poor sense of boundaries: 1. They perceive both the good and the bad coming from the mother, the object, as coming from themselves. 2. Infants cannot process the contradictory fact that their mother is both good and bad—for example, because she is busy and does not change their diaper immediately. They also struggle to process pain itself, experiencing immense pain and death anxiety. The infant’s mind deploys a primitive defense: splitting. The object, the mother, is split into two internal objects: the good object or good breast, and the bad object or bad breast.

This is both a splitting into opposing sides and a splitting between inside and outside. The infant depends completely on the object, the mother, and must defend the connection with that object at all costs, because otherwise it would mean abandonment and death. The infant cannot bear the cost of attacking the object, so the internal bad object becomes the target onto which aggression is projected. (1. I am bad; otherwise, why would the world be bad? 2. Mom is good; I am bad. 3. If I punish myself, I can avoid external punishment.)

From this, we can see:

The internal bad object is both an internalized experience of a harmful object—bad parents, a harsh superego—and the self under attack, with aggression projected onto oneself. So it is actually quite similar to Kohut’s “selfobject”: something that appears to be an external object but is actually a developed part of the self. Yet the two do not describe the same thing or process.

The internalized good object—“my good mother is with me at all times”—is a source of psychological security and emotional stability, an inner safe haven. It is the positive experience brought by what Winnicott calls an external holding environment and a good-enough mother.

IV. Similarities, Differences, and Connections Between Selfobject Theory and Object Relations Theory

We can see that this theory of the “good object” is extremely similar to selfobject relations. Both the good object and selfobject functions explain the “positive aspect of object constancy” in children within attachment theory. In object relations theory, “my good mother is with me”; in selfobject theory, selfobject functions are themselves the good mother. The child does not become anxious because the mother is absent, as happens in anxious or ambivalent attachment.

One simply tends toward external relationships, harmful experiences, and trauma, while the other tends toward internal development and psychological development through positive experiences.

In traditional psychoanalytic theory, the harsh superego is taken in from the outside and internalized, as though the psyche had directly absorbed a foreign object. Selfobject theory takes a developmental psychology perspective: the external environment has failed to provide adequate selfobject functions, leading to unhealthy development of the self and pathological defensive behavior, such as attacking oneself through a harsh superego. In other words, it is not that one is imitating an external harsh parent, whipping and verbally abusing oneself. Rather, one lacks the ability to love and soothe oneself, and so slaps and harshly criticizes oneself.

As object relations theory developed from Klein to Winnicott, it too placed greater emphasis on developmental psychology and the self. As mentioned earlier, his holding environment, appropriate frustrations—which correspond to Kohut’s small frustrations that encourage a healthy self to develop selfobject functions and care for itself—and similar concepts essentially describe the same thing as Kohut’s development of selfobject functions.

V. A Pyramid Scheme

The pressure to have children and the way children are raised in many traditional families really do constitute a pyramid scheme: they must continually recruit people down the line to fill the deficit. This is true not only economically and in terms of care in old age, but psychologically as well. Parents gain far too much psychological value from their children: unconditional love, emotional gratification, control, an outlet for venting, admiration, reversed experiences of selfobject relationships—mirroring, idealization, and alter ego—a holding environment, and so on. So when they say, “You’ll understand once you become a parent yourself,” what they really mean is: once you start feeding off the people below you, you will no longer think this pyramid scheme is so bad. Instead, you will embrace it and become addicted.

This is a pathological chain of emotionally immature adults, like boats lashed together with iron chains. That is why the popular saying is so accurate: a child who awakens severs the karmic legacy of generations.

One of the greatest things I have learned from studying psychology is that children’s love for their parents far exceeds parents’ love for their children. How selfish must parents be to conceal their children’s immense, unconditional love for them while glorifying themselves as saintly mothers?

VI. The Unity of Heaven and Humanity, the Equality and Co-Arising of All Things

This is also why Zhuangzi’s philosophical breakthrough lies in tranquility, the unity of Heaven and humanity, and the equality and co-arising of all things. What the human psyche seeks is a profound, peaceful existential experience of harmonious coexistence among the self, others, and the world—the area on which philosophies popular after World War II, such as phenomenology, intersubjectivity, and existentialism, focus. The absence of this experience is an existential crisis. A large part of Zhuangzi’s philosophy consists of analyzing social problems through existential philosophy: alienation, freedom and responsibility, death, meaning, ethics, and so on. Professor Chen Guying of Taiwan, a renowned interpreter of Zhuangzi, began with interpretations of Nietzsche and existentialism before embracing Zhuangzi’s philosophy in the middle and later stages of his career. Another large part of Zhuangzi’s work describes the state of a healthy self: complete capacities and unmanifest virtue, sitting in forgetfulness, and an empty room giving rise to light.

“An empty room gives rise to light” is very simple: within the tranquil fasting of the mind—the chamber of the heart—there is warm light. Its opposite is an empty room—the self—that is itself fragile, filled with bad objects and defense mechanisms, while outwardly craving cheap, harmful selfobject experiences: NPD, vampires.

Marxism, humanism, existentialism, Zhuangzi, Epicurus, and others all point a finger toward the moon from different angles, pointing toward the truth of the human mind and the world. That is why Marx placed such importance on Epicurus, and why Sartre, after studying existentialism and humanism, turned toward Marxism in the middle and later stages of his career and attempted to combine Marxism with existentialism. This is the right path.