File spoon-archives/marxism-psych.archive/marxism-psych_1996/96-12-11.201, message 47


From: MARTINDD-AT-CASMAIL.MUOHIO.EDU
Date:          Fri, 25 Oct 1996 10:08:46 -500
Subject:       Re: M-PSY: Object Relations - a definition


Hello everyone:

Symbolic interactionist, George Herbert Mead, in his theory of the 
self also theorised the self as an object that is constituted in a 
field of relations, though not quite in the same way as feminist 
scholar Nancy Chodorow.  For Mead, of course, the self  was 
both an object that was implicated - or more precisely "indicated" -
in action and something that people could act toward (i.e. it was an 
"objective"). A critique of Mead's theory, one rendered by Gregory 
Stone (also S.I.), is that it is "overly discursive." Appearance is also a 
communicative vehicle through which we place others and are placed 
ourselves within a field of relations (A.K.A. "identity"). While Mead 
did not specifically deal with class in his analysis, it certainly 
has rather obvious implications in how selves as objects are 
constituted and the networks of relations within which they are 
ongoingly formulated. Yet, I gather that this is a bit different from the way that 
object relations theorists deal with the matter.
  
I was wondering if Winnicott, Fairbairn and others distinguish 
between the  discursive and nondiscursive dimensions of of object 
relations. Or is discourse epiphenominal to the cognitive development 
that initially occurs wherein a field of objects ( the self included) is 
originally differentiated?  (My take on Mead is that the entire 
process will take place only if  children acquire linguistic symbols.) 

       Best - Daniel Martin
                  Oxford, Ohio  


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