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Object relations and social interaction in short stories
Abstract
This paper attempts, first, to extend a conceptualization of basic forms of social interaction and psychological orientation with concepts from object relations theory. Next, a coding scheme is presented for describing object relations in short stories. Then, we show how twenty stories with different patterns of social interaction and psychological orientation differ from each other in their object relations, as assessed by the coding frame.
... Such themes are then discussed and interpreted according to an object relations framework [22,23], which consents the deepening of meanings related to the different identified themes (and sub-themes), beyond the explicit statements, so to provide further insights about participants' repairing processes to ensure self-regulation in coping with the somatic experience of a defective body. To this purpose, we relied on the coding scheme developed by Mitchell and Helson [34] for describing object relations in short stories, including dimensions related to mutuality of autonomy and conceptual level of object representation. These dimensions are conceived along a developmental continuum from the paranoid schizoid position to the depression position. ...
Objectives The current research study aims at investigating the illness experience of people affected by Pulmonary Hypertension (PH), as a particularly challenging rare disease that is paradigmatic for the understanding of regulatory processes. Methods The study used Giorgi’s method to analyze the illness narratives of 11 adult Italian women affected by PH according to a qualitative phenomenological approach. An object relations perspective looking at chronic illness as an internal object was adopted for result interpretation. Results Four general themes were identified that characterize illness narratives of people with PH and illustrate the progressive stages of the disease. They respectively deal with the body/mind disruption at symptom onset, the protagonization of illness in the search for a diagnosis, the complicated grief at the time of diagnosis, and the anaclitic strategies to face the future. Conclusion Findings make a significant contribution to the exploration of the subjective experience of people with PH in managing illness-related challenges from symptom onset to after diagnosis.
Pulmonary Hypertension (PH) can be considered as a paradigmat-ic disease for the understanding of repairing processes enacted to re-store internal regulation when the body is defective. The present study aims at providing an object relations informed narrative analy-sis of the illness experience of people affected by PH through a qualitative phenomenological analysis of the illness narratives of 12 adult Italian patients with PH. Four thematic areas (each consisting of three subthemes) were identified that respectively deal with pro-gressive stages of illness story: coping with early symptoms (mean-inglessness, minimization, self-blame), searching for a diagnosis (helplessness, burden, refusal of medical advice), reacting to diagno-sis (shock, resignation, acceptance of limitations) and facing the fu-ture (medical benefits, faith in God, support from patients' associa-tions). Findings make a significant contribution to the exploration of people with PH's several subjective challenges in coping with a de-fective body from symptom onset to after diagnosis.
Clinical reports and recent investigations indicate that depressed patients report that when they were children their parents were insensitive, unavailable, or overly intrusive and unable to tolerate the child's autonomy and independence. Using both an open-ended description of parents and a more structured rating procedure (Osgood semantic differential), the present study assessed the relation of descriptions of parents to aspects of depression in 121 undergraduates. Ratings of parents on the semantic differential as negative figures correlated significantly with several measures of depression. Intensity of depression and types of depressive experiences were also significantly related to the qualities attributed to the parents and the conceptual level with which the parents were described in the open-end procedure. The data offer support for the contention that the content and the cognitive level of parental representations may be a central dimension in depression. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
This study examines the use of excerpted Rorschach responses for rating object relations. This assessment of object relations focuses on a dimension defined as Mutuality of Autonomy. A Rorschach Scale for Mutuality of autonomy is presented. Its application to excerpted Rorschach data is described. Raters did not apply the Mutuality of Autonomy Scale to the entire protocol as had been done previously (Urist, 1977). Instead, in an attempt to argue that Rorschach ratings in fact reflected Mutuality of Autonomy and not extraneous factors, ratings were based exclusively on excerpted responses. Reliability for the excerpting was at a high level of agreement, and the Rorschach Mutuality of Autonomy Scores based on these excerpts correlated significantly with independent clinical ratings of Mutuality of Autonomy.
In this paper the authors discuss personality development as part of a complex transaction of two fundamental developmental lines - an anaclitic developmental line leading to the establishment of satisfying, intimate interpersonal relationships, and an introjective development line leading to a stable, realistic, and essentially positive identity. These two developmental lines normally develop as a complex dialectical process. Psychopathology in the anaclitic configuration includes anaclitic depression (or the infantile personality) and hysteria. Predominant are concerns about interpersonal relationships and the capacity to be close, intimate and to give and receive care and love. Psychopathology in the introjective configuration focuses primarily on issues of self-definition, self-control, self-worth, and identity. These issues can be expressed in primitive form in paranoia, in somewhat advanced form in obsessive-compulsive disorders, or at a high developmental level in introjective guilt-laden depression and phallic narcissism. Each of these forms of introjective psychopathology expresses exaggerated and distorted attempts to establish self-definition and identity.
The study attempts to demonstrate a structurally-based consistency to subjects' object relations as measured across various independent ratings. Particular interest was aimed at the capacity of the Rorschach to tap developmentally crucial aspects of the structure of patients' object relations. A scale was developed to measure the degree to which relationships between figures on the Rorschach were perceived in terms of a mutuality of autonomy. These Rorschach ratings were then correlated with independent measures of this mutuality of autonomy dimension which were obtained from a written autobiography, and ratings by ward staff. Based on a sample of 40 inpatient subjects, the resulting intercorrelation among measures proved to be highly significant.
Investigations in the psychoanalytic theory of object relations and object representations
- Blatt
Paranoia and cataclysmic narratives
- Keen