Object Relations Family and Individual Therapy

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• Object Relations Family and Individual Therapy
• Firenze, October 2005
• David E. Scharff, M.D.
• Jill Savege Scharff, M.D.

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Fairbairn

• drive to be in a relationship (not instincts)
• role of affect
• object splitting and repression
• ego splitting and repression
• internal object relationships
• exciting
• rejecting
• central

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Klein

• life and death instinct based
• projective/ and introjective identification
• unconscious fantasy
• paranoid-schizoid position
• depressive position

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Object Relations Family and Couple Therapy

• Derives from psychoanalytic principles of
• Listening
• Responding to unconscious material
• Developing insight
• Interpreting
• Working in the transference and
  countertransference toward understanding and
  growth.

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The family is a system of sets of relationships

• Which function in ways unique to that family
  during developmental phases of the individuals
  and family.
• Which can be noted by the family therapist who
  attends to the family system as its members
  relate to each other and as a group relate to the
  therapist
• Which repeat patterns of interaction embodying
  old ways of feeling and behaving rooted in
  earlier experience with each other and with
  families of origin.

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Object Relations Family Therapy

• Family as a small group
• the group task
• developmental stages
• sub-group formations
• scapegoating as projective identification

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Object Relations Couple Therapy

• Technique
• listening to words, gesture, silence
• following the couples direction
• eliciting affect
• working with countertransference
• interpreting defenses against anxiety
• insight leads to change

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Goals of Object Relations Family and Couple
Therapy

• Not symptom resolution, but
• Return to appropriate developmental phase of
  family life, with a capacity to master
  developmental stress
• Improved ability to work as a group
• Approved ability to differentiate and to meet the
  needs of individual group members

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• Technique of Assessment and Therapy

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7 Major Tasks of Family Assessment

• Provision of therapeutic space
• Assessment of developmental phase and level
• Demonstration of defensive functioning
• Exploration of unconscious assumptions and
  underlying anxiety ? ? ?

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7 Major Tasks of Family Assessment

• Use of transference and countertransference
• Testing of response to interpretation and
  assessment format
• Making of formulation, recommendation and
  treatment plan

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Technique of Therapy

• The management of the session and course of
  therapy
• Transference and countertransference

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Technique of Object Relations Family Therapy

• 1. Provision of the space within a frame
• 2. Management of the environment
• 3. Demonstration of the ways of working
• 4. Mental activities, reflecting and digesting
• 5. Giving feedback, support, advice,
  interpretation
• 6. Working through
• 7. Termination work
• ? ? ?

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Technique of Object Relations Family Therapy

• Provision of space within a frame
• Management of therapeutic environment
• Flexible style not a blank screen

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Demonstrating Our Ways of Working

• Enlarging the field of participation
• Include members perspective
• Encouraging interaction
• Enlarging the field and depth of inquiry
• Question feelings and value affective exchange
• Object relations history ? ? ?

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Demonstrating Our Ways of Working, continued

• Enlarging the familys scope
• Observation
• Depth of understanding
• A living history of
• Internal Objects
• Marriage
• Childrens memory
• The family group as organizer

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These activities include

• Enlarging individuals observing egos
• Exploring marital discord, sibling conflict, and
  their link
• Getting the history of the internal objects
• Exploring Core Affective Moments

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Bibliography

• Scharff, D. E. and Scharff, J. S. (1987). Object
  Relations Family Therapy. Northvale, NJ Jason
  Aronson
• Scharff, D. E. and Scharff, J. S. (1991). Object
  Relations Couple Therapy. Northvale, NJ Jason
  Aronson
• Scharff, J. S. and Scharff, D. E. (In Press).
  The Primer of Object Relations Therapy, New,
  Expanded Edition. Northvale, NJ Jason Aronson
• Scharff, J. S. and Scharff, D. E. (1994). Object
  Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma.
  Northvale, NJ Jason Aronson.
• Scharff, J. S. and Scharff, D. E. (1998). Object
  Relations Individual Therapy. Northvale, NJ
  Jason Aronson.