From: Graham Clarke <graham-AT-essex.ac.uk>
Date: Mon, 28 Oct 96 14:50:34 GMT
Subject: Re: M-PSY: Object Relations & self as text


Here is my fourpennyworth on the relationship between Lacan and 
object-relations theory.

There is a argument about a logocentric and phallocentric view of the self
(A. Wilden 'System and Structure') which I think divides Lacanian theory from
object relations theory. It is an argument that need to be developed. I am not
able to do more than indicate briefly what I take to be some important
differences between the Lacanian and object relations theorists. 

In my view the differences are most clearly focussed on early object relations.
For the object relations theorist 'good enough' early object relations prepares
the way for language acquisition and the development of a stable self and
failures of early object relations lead to problems with the development of
language and the self. Lacan's "just-so" story about the mirror stage needs to
be contrasted with the observationally based work on early object relations and
the role of reciprocity and intersubjectivity as important forms of mirroring
by significant others. So the accounts of early object relations are crucially
different. Lacan's theory is based for the most part in philosophical theory
while the object relations theorists is based in observational studies, child
analysis and clinical reconstructions. There is a degree of closure between 
developmental psychology and psychoanalysis regarding early object relations.
(Daniel Stern, Margaret Mahler)

Another difference is that for the early Freud the ego is an achievement, a 
totalisation of the component instincts that leads to a stable self at
or around the Oedipal stage. Lacan took over that aspect of Freud's early
thought that suggests that the ego is a construction, but recast it via
Hegelian and existentialist thought into his mirror stage story of the false
totalisation of the ego, the mis-recognition of ourselves. For many object
relations theorists there is a self present from and before birth, even if it
is called by different names like 'idiom'(Winnicott) or 'pristine ego'
(Fairbairn) or similar. This self is a centre from which activity can and does
flow rather than a fully self reflexive self which, as in Freud's account, only
really appears after a long experience of the social order. Fairbairn talks
about this pristine ego with reference to a biological, bodily self as a centre
of activity. Freud's structural theory, which Lacan rejects (Bowie), is a
forerunner to the object relations approach and contains a suggestion of the
presence (heritability) of a primitive ego. The early ego is reality oriented
for the object relations theorists whereas the ego is a mis-recognition for
Lacanians.

It does seem to be an interesting question as to why the autobiographical 
narrative self doesn't appear with any reliability for some time after the
competent use of language, including use of "I", has taken place. Fairbairn
suggests that the Oedipal situation is not as important for theory as it is for 
therapy and that it is essentially constructed by the child as they negotiate
their gendered identity within the family and society. This seems to me to
undervalue the importance of this significant development in object relations
although it does stress the social nature of the Oedipal situation and thus
allow room for the variety of different social constructions of this important
moment.

It seems to me to be a pity that there isn't more of a dialogue between these
two strands of psychoanalytic theory. Lacan's critiques of Klein, Fairbairn
and Balint in the Seminar are too often regarded as definitive.

As cultural critique there are a far greater number of non-clinical Lacanians
involved than there are non-clinical object relations people. Despite the work
of Segal, Alford, Rustin, Elliot, Phillips, Richards and others, cultural
critique from an object relations point of view is underdeveloped. Within some
discourses the Lacanian viewpoint is more or less hegemonic.

Graham


     --- from list marxism-psych-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---