Object relations refers to interpersonal relations. Technically, the term object, first used by Sigmund Freud in a context of early mother-child relations, refers to the significant person that is the object or target of someone’s drives. Ronald Fairbairn and Otto Kernbergare two psychoanalysts who have explored the meaning of object as the inner residue of past relationships that shape a person’s interactions in general and with a clinician in the psychoanalytic setting. The purpose of this talk is to offer an introduction to the theoretical framework of these two authors.
Pablo de Amesti Davanzo, MA, MD, is Senate Emeritus of Psychiatry from the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA Medical Center. He is former co-director of the UCLA Outpatient Child & AdolescentPsychopharmacology clinic, and a fellow at the West LA Veteran’s Hospital. Chilean born, he immigrated to the US after the 1973 military coup. Completing his training, he researched childhood mood disorders and worked at a community clinic in the San Fernando Valley. He is now a consultant at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.