FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

DAVID P. CELANI

Fairbairn’s Theory of Change

David P. Celani

Fairbairn’s unique structural theory with its three pairs of selves

and objects has proven to be a highly usable and practical model
of the human psyche, yet it has remained a minor player in the
world of psychoanalysis. There are a number of factors that ac-
count for its lack of popularity, foremost among them the timing
of the model’s introduction to the analytic community. Fairbairn’s
four successive papers that described his metapsychology (1940,
1941, 1943, and 1944) were published just after Freud’s death,
when his theory was the dominant model of psychoanalysis. Ad-
ditionally, Fairbairn’s model was incomplete, used unfamiliar ter-
minology, and, in its singularity, forced the analyst to abandon
drive theory, the heart of Freud’s metapsychology. This paper will
examine and update Fairbairn’s unique model of change—from
the outset of pathology that begins with attachment to bad ob-
jects, to their metamorphosis into internal structures and finally to
techniques of treatment that reduce their influence on the patients’
internal world. The treatment section carefully follows Fairbairn’s
metapsychology, and focuses first on the analyst becoming a
good object in the eyes of the patient, then unearthing bad object
memories in a safe and compassionate interpersonal environment,
engaging the patient’s substructures in a manner that does not
intensify preexisting internal templates, and finally aiding the pa-
tient in resuming his or her stalled emotional development. This
exegesis of Fairbairn original model, along with recent modifi-
cations that have been made to it, demonstrates the consisten-
cy, clear focus, and utility of this little-known metapsychology.

Fairbairn’s structural model is based on the child’s absolute de-

pendency on the nurturing object. The intensity of this depen-
dency disallows acknowledgment of maternal failures or disap-
pointments that would endanger his or her attachment to the
life-sustaining object (Fairbairn, 1940, 1941, 1943). The child’s
dependency on his or her objects is coupled with an absolute lack
of power to force the object to love and nurture him or her. Conse-
quently, the child is unable to avoid experiences that may include

Psychoanalytic Review, 103(3), June 2016 © 2016 N.P.A.P.

342 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

indifference, emotional deprivation, or outright abuse. Fairbairn

saw dissociation as the fundamental defense mechanism that chil-
dren use to protect themselves from recognizing the sometimes
harsh parental failures to which they have been exposed. Thus,
children are forced by their need for a sense of being securely at-
tached to caring objects to dissociate and repress relational events
that would create ambivalence toward their needed objects (Fair-
bairn, 1944, p. 95). Those interactions that are intolerably nega-
tive, and clearly demonstrate to the child that the caretakers are
indifferent, absent, or hateful are dissociated and banished to the
unconscious. This defense allows the child to live with the com-
forting illusion of being loved by the life-giving object.
Fairbairn’s structural model organizes the human personality
into three exclusive self and object pairs. Two of the pairs (each
pair consists of a specific part-self that relates to a specific part-
object) are the result of dissociations, while the dominant third
pair of self and object is conscious. The conscious ego that relates
to the external world and to parts of the parent that are nurtur-
ing and responsive to the child’s developmental needs was called
the central ego (or self) by Fairbairn (1944) ; later he labeled the
object to which this ego related as either the ideal or idealized
object (Fairbairn, 1951). The other two dissociated selves (and
their specific objects) have to remain mostly unconscious because
they have experienced interpersonal rejections from their objects
that are so severe that the central ego cannot tolerate integrating
them into awareness. If the neglected child were able to integrate
the large number of rejecting aspects of the object with the fewer
number of loving aspects, the intolerable truth that he or she is
not loved would come into focus, and the child would face emo-
tional abandonment.
The first split-off part-self that develops in the abused or ne-
glected child was originally called the internal saboteur by Fair-
bairn and changed in 1954 to the antilibidinal ego. This part-self
of the child only relates to the rejecting aspects of the parent, and
the part-self and the part-object (the latter appropriately called
the rejecting object) are first dissociated and then held in the
unconscious by repression. The antilibidinal ego (or self) is fully
aware of the abuse and neglect that it has experienced, and this
part-self is filled with passionate though suppressed rage toward
the rejecting object. This self and object pair has to remain in
DAVID P. CELANI 343

the unconscious because the central ego cannot accept the real-
ity of abuse or neglect emanating from other aspects of the ideal
object. Thus, the splitting defense is designed to keep ambiva-
lence at bay. A second split of part-self and part-object develops
on the positive “side” of the object, which gives the needy child
the illusion of hope for love in the future, thus keeping his or her
attachment alive. The unrealistically positive part-self was called
the libidinal ego by Fairbairn, and it is only able to see the promis-
ing aspects of the parent, which Fairbairn called the exciting object.
This structure keeps the child filled with hope that tomorrow the
maternal (or paternal) object will offer the needed love and sup-
port essential for their development. My view of the role of the li-
bidinal ego and its associated object is at variance with Fairbairn’s
(1944) original view. He assumed that the “teasing/promising”
aspect of the exciting object was too frustrating for the central
ego to endure, as it teased but never gratified the child, and there-
fore it had to remain dissociated. There is consistent clinical evi-
dence (Celani, 1993, 2010, 2014b; Scharff & Birtles, 1997) that
the libidinal ego does not remain permanently repressed in the
unconscious, but rather that it can become the conscious, execu-
tive ego, particularly when it is called upon to rescue the individu-
al from loss of hope in the object. In times of low stress, however,
the experiences contained within both the antilibidinal ego and
the libidinal ego, along with the attachment-disrupting behavior
of the parent that is now internalized as the rejecting object, are
held in the unconscious, completely out of the awareness of the
central ego. The splitting defense allows the central ego to remain
attached to the ideal object, which in many cases may be a small
fragment of the parental object’s entire personality, without the
experience of ambivalence.
The development of a central ego or self that interpersonally
engages the healthy aspects of the parent and others in the exter-
nal world depends upon early supportive experiences that cre-
ate an internalized substrate of memories of itself in relationship
to responsive external objects, as the following quote from Pine
(1985) describes:
For the child with optimal developmental opportunities, there
are innumerable periods of quiet play, quiet object contact,
and quiet bodily experience that provide low-keyed pleasure in
344 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

unthreatening doses. I believe that this underlies some of what

later appears as comfortable self-feeling and object contact, as
resourcefulness and the ability to overcome pain, as positive
mood- overall, the underpinnings of healthy functioning. These
are “background” experiences, so to speak, not of high inten-
sity; but they are omnipresent in the day-to-day life of the child
at home. (p. 5)

The child of attuned and emotionally supportive objects does not

have to dissociate many intolerable relational events, as they are
fewer in number and less severe than those experienced by the
abused or neglected child. As a result, the child from this type of
background will develop a central ego that is robust, filled with
supportive memories, and unafraid of interactions with new ex-
ternal objects outside the immediate family. These relationships
outside the nuclear family further round out his or her central
self, as aspects of external objects can be internalized as well, thus
giving the individual trust in others and a richer experience of
the interpersonal world. This results in a young adult who deals
in an “open system” (Fairbairn, 1958) of relationships with ex-
ternal objects that are unencumbered by unconscious patterns
that distort relationships with others. Conversely, the libidinal
and antilibidinal sub-egos within the abused or neglected child
are frozen in time, locked in the “closed system” (Fairbairn, 1958)
of the unconscious, and they are limited to either relating to the
internalized objects who originally created them, or to distorting
external relationships into patterns that preexist between the in-
ternalized structures.
Fairbairn held a joint appointment both to the University of
Edinburgh and to the Edinburgh Royal Mental Hospital, begin-
ning in 1926 (Sutherland, 1989, p. 27). He oversaw an orphanage
attached to the child guidance clinic and had direct contact with
many abused and neglected children. It was during this time that
he recognized that it was the severity, duration, and frequency of
real-world experiences of neglect or abuse that forced the child
to distort, first through dissociation and then through repression,
parts of his or her ego structure in order to remain attached to his
or her objects. These repressed “bad objects,” which are defined
as relationships between the child and disappointing/frustrating
DAVID P. CELANI 345

or abusive objects, are the fundamental source of psychopathol-

ogy in Fairbairn’s model:

Whether any given individual becomes delinquent, psychoneu-

rotic, psychotic or simply “normal” depend in the main upon
the operation of three factors: (1) the extent to which bad ob-
jects have been installed in the unconscious and the degree of
badness by which they are characterized, (2) the extent to which
the ego is identified with internalized bad objects, and (3) the
nature and strength of the defenses which protect the ego from
these objects. (1943, p. 65)

The most severely abused children have not only experienced

greater amounts of rejecting behavior that had to be dissociated,
but in addition, had fewer enhancing, growth-inducing central-
ego/ideal-object interactions with their parents. Thus their cen-
tral egos are impoverished because they had too few positive
relational memories to build confidence and positive internal
structures. Worse, large parts of the central ego are lost when
parts of it are transformed into the antilibidinal and libidinal
egos. Children from apparently “normal” families can also suffer
from innumerable daily failures that are less dramatic but no less
damaging, because of their frequency. Over time the failed parent
can damage the child over the entire course of his or her develop-
ment, as Mitchell (1988) describes in the following passage:

Mothers unable to provide adequate care for infants, who lack

warmth, constancy, and so on, often tend to have similar dif-
ficulties with the same children as they grow older. The mother
who is not attuned to her infant’s needs and affects tends to be
unable to engage her toddler playfully, to instruct her latency
child respectfully, to respond to, yet set limits for, her adoles-
cent joyfully. (p. 147)

The children of such parents must use the dissociative defense to

avoid consciously experiencing the many small daily rejections,
and this process results in weakened central ego that contains re-
pressed, incompatible part-egos that are unknown to the central
ego and to each other. This situation results in a fragile overall
structure with severely compromised integration. The weakened
346 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

central ego is vulnerable to being displaced by the competitive

sub-selves that can assume the executive position and force the re-
pression of the previously dominant central ego, thereby causing
interpersonal chaos and destroying relationships to others, who
are surprised by, and resentful of, sudden outbreaks of contrary
emotions and opinions (Celani, 1994, 2010).
As previously noted, highly dysfunctional parents offer relative-
ly few nurturing interactions between themselves as ideal objects
and the child’s central ego. Instead, the neglected child develops
a complex “inner world” that is populated with part-selves and
part-objects that are suffused with passionate anger and unmet
needs that lead to unrealistic hopes, all of which are unknown to
the central ego. Over time, children with impoverished emotional
histories develop an inner world that becomes more important
than the actual external world, as it acts as an alternative reality to
the abusive and/or absent objects in their interpersonal environ-
ment. The following quote from Rubens (1984) illustrates what
Fairbairn (1958) called “closed system thinking”—the consequenc-
es of the dissociation of the four structures (two selves relating to
two objects that are comprised of identifications with the actual
objects) in a isolated, yet emotionally teeming unconscious:

The more profound the splits, the more extensive and the more
deeply repressed the subsidiary selves they engender, the great-
er will be the pathological effect on the Central Self. Just as this
Central Self is what remains after the splitting of the Libidinal
and Antilibidinal selves, so too will the Central Self’s ongoing
experience and expression be diminished by the tendency of
the subsidiary selves to limit and to transform subsequent expe-
rience and expression according to the closed systems of their
defining paradigms. The more extensive the portion of the
self which has been repressed, the less that will be available for
open, ongoing interaction with the world. (p. 435)

The consequence to the developing child of constant dissociation

of intolerable interactions with the needed objects is an impover-
ished central ego that is at the mercy of the need-driven and en-
raged split-off sub-egos. The child is less able to deal with actual
external objects as the distortions from the internal structures
block accurate perceptions of them. The child’s impoverished
central ego is unable to negotiate with the outside world, as his
DAVID P. CELANI 347

or her unmet developmental needs have stopped the child’s emo-

tional maturation, thus making age-appropriate social and inter-
personal behaviors far beyond his or her reach. The child’s im-
poverished central ego is fixated at an earlier developmental age
and clings to the ideal object (as well as to the internalized bad
objects) with ferocity, waiting for the parent to support him or her
and restart his or her development. Fairbairn (1943) recognized
the relationship between unmet needs and a counterintuitive in-
crease in attachment to bad objects:

If a child’s parents are bad objects, he cannot reject them even

if they do not force themselves upon him: for he cannot do
without them. Even if they neglect him, he cannot reject them:
for if they neglect him, his need for them is increased. (p. 67)

Currently, adolescents who live in the world of video games and

who are unable to interact with others on a one-to-one interper-
sonal level are good examples of the combination of developmen-
tal arrest and reliance on an inner world populated by larger-than-
life, emotionally charged characters. Fairbairn’s model of human
psychic structure sees a dynamic struggle between a compromised
central ego (more or less, depending on childhood experiences)
that relates to an ideal object in competition with two powerful
and repressed part-self and part-object structures that relate only
to each other, while simultaneously distorting external reality.
Fairbairn never accepted the possibility that one or the other
sub-ego could take over the central ego’s executive function and
repress it (Celani, 2010, 2014b). Instead, he assumed that the two
sub-egos related to each other only within the confines of the inte-
rior world. In the following passage, he describes the relationship
between the central ego and the subsidiary egos:

As regards to the relationship of the central ego to the other

egos, our most important clue to its nature lies in the fact that,
whereas the central ego must be regarded as comprising pre-
conscious and conscious as well as unconscious, elements, the
other egos must equally be regarded as essentially unconscious.
(Fairbairn, 1944, pp. 104-105)

This is a very problematic assumption on Fairbairn’s part, as clini-

cians who use Fairbairn’s model have observed patients acting un-
348 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

der the direction of one or the other of the substructures, while

the central ego was repressed. Sutherland (1989), Fairbairn’s bi-
ographer, spoke of observing patients operating with one of the
substructures in the executive position:

The power of the whole self to manage behavior with optimal

adaptiveness is thus the result of the integrity of the whole
self against the pressure from sub-selves, and these two sets of
forces vary according to the past history of the person and the
nature of the external environment to which behavior is being
directed. . . . With a sub-self becoming dominant, it is difficult
to specify where the “autonomy” of the self is then located.
Even under strong compulsions, there is usually an awareness
of the situation of being “possessed,” as though the observing
self remains intact though powerless to exert enough control
over it. (pp. 170-171)

Thus clinical observation tells us that the central ego cannot al-
ways contain or control the sub-egos, as the mostly unconscious
structures have had far more powerful and emotionally laden
agendas than does the central ego, including the fear and desire
for revenge of the antilibidinal ego toward the rejecting object
and the adoration and pursuit of love of the libidinal ego toward
the exciting part-object. Scharff and Birtles (1997) have also not-
ed that patients can present themselves with one or the other sub-
ego in the dominant position:

Clinically we see patients who use anger to cover up the affect

of unrequited longing stemming from their libidinal ego con-
stellation. They are more comfortable with an angry stance to-
wards objects than with painfully unsatisfied longing. Although
Fairbairn did not describe the parallel situation, once he
pointed the way to the internal dynamic relationship between
object relations sets, we can see that the libidinal ego can also
secondarily repress the antilibidinal relationship, as represented
in patients who show an exaggerated sense of love and hope—a
too-good-to-be-true personality-in order to mask resentful anger
that is even more painful to them. The point that emerges is
that all internal structures are in constant dynamic interactions
with each other (pp. 1095-1096).
DAVID P. CELANI 349

Despite the fact that Fairbairn did not describe central ego weak-
ness in his patients, his model takes it into account, both from the
assumption that parts of the central ego are lost to the uncon-
scious when they become transformed into the two sub-egos, and
from the distorting influence of the inner structures on the cen-
tral ego’s grasp of external reality (Fairbairn,1958). He wrongly
assumed that the central ego remained in the dominant position
by repressing the substructures with aggression (Fairbairn 1944,
p. 105), a position that I have repeatedly challenged (Celani, 2010,
2014b). For example, there is a clear, observable alternation of
sub-ego dominance in the battered woman (Celani, 1994), who re-
peatedly undergoes a shift between her libidinal and antilibidinal
ego (while the central ego remains repressed) in relation to her
exciting/rejecting abuser. Fairbairn (1944) did note that splitting
involved one part of the ego repressing another part: “This view
involves the anomaly of the ego repressing itself” (p. 89), but,
again, he never spoke of the central ego being displaced by any of
the four substructures.
Ogden (2009) has written perhaps the most forceful descrip-
tion of the intensely competitive and aggressive relationship be-
tween the rejecting object and the antilibidinal self. This current
view of the relationship between these two structures is also at
variance with Fairbairn’s (1944) original position (p. 104). Fair-
bairn saw the antilibidinal ego (internal saboteur), not as a inter-
nalization of the victimized child in a passionately hateful rela-
tionship to the rejecting part-object, but rather as a cooperating
arm of the rejecting object as it complied with the rejecting object
motives by attacking the libidinal ego in the inner world (Celani,
2010). In stark contrast to Fairbairn, Odgen’s (2009) position sees
the two substructures in a never-ending struggle with each other:

The relationship between the internal saboteur and the reject-

ing object derives from the infant’s love of his mother despite
(and because of) her rejection of him. . . . Neither the rejecting
object nor the internal saboteur is willing to think about, much
less relinquish, that tie. In fact, there is no desire on the part of
either to change anything about their mutual dependence. The
power of that bond is impossible to overestimate. The rejecting
object and the internal saboteur are determined to nurse their
350 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

feelings of having been deeply wronged, cheated, humiliated,

betrayed, exploited, treated unfairly, discriminated against, and
so on. The mistreatment at the hands of the other is felt to be
unforgivable. An apology is forever expected by each, but never
offered by either. Nothing is more important to the internal
saboteur (the rejected self) than coercing the rejecting object
into recognizing the incalculable pain that he or she has caused.
(p. 109).

Ogden’s description illustrates the passionate emotionality con-

tained in the patient’s inner world. Both sub-ego structures have
a “program” that motivates them and gives these separated, iso-
lated sub-selves meaning, purpose, and direction (Celani, 2010).
However, there is something very troubling in Ogden’s descrip-
tion of the internal struggle, in that he sees the internal saboteur
(the antilibidinal ego) and the rejecting object as equally powerful
structures. Most often, the actual parent that has been internal-
ized as the rejecting object (and which is now a dissociated part of
the individual’s central ego that is completely identified with the
hateful and rejecting aspects of the object) is absolutely indifferent
to and unaware of the suffering of the child, despite the fact that
he or she caused the suffering in the first place (Celani, 2005).
The rejecting object, because of its extreme power position vis à
vis the child, is extremely unlikely to feel “deeply wronged, cheat-
ed, humiliated, betrayed, exploited, treated unfairly, discriminat-
ed against,” as Odgen claims. The actual rejecting object (and the
internalized version of that object) has displayed and/or acted
out rage, contempt, and indifference toward the child in ways that
were utterly devastating to his or her development and well-being.
Fairbairn (1944) described the catastrophic effect of the rejecting
mother on the child (and equivalently on the child’s dissociated
antilibidinal self) in the following passage:
From the latter standpoint, what he experiences is lack of love,
and indeed emotional rejection on his mother’s part. This be-
ing so, the expression of hate towards her as a rejecting object
becomes in his eyes a very dangerous procedure. On the one
hand it is calculated to make her reject him all the more, and
thus increase her “badness” and make her seem more real in her
capacity of a bad object. . . . At the same time, it also becomes
a dangerous procedure for the child to express his libidinal
DAVID P. CELANI 351

need, i.e., his nascent love, of his mother in the face of rejection
at her hands. . . . At a somewhat earlier deeper level (or at an
earlier age) the experience is one of shame over the display of
needs which are disregarded or belittled. In virtue of these ex-
periences of humiliation and shame he feels reduced to a state
of worthlessness, destitution or beggardom. His sense of his
own value is threatened: and he feels bad in the sense of “infe-
rior.” (pp. 112-113)

This absolute sense of worthlessness and devastation dissociated

in the antilibidinal ego is not experienced by the internalized rejecting
object, nor by the actual parent in the external world. In my expe-
rience, parents who have done enormous damage to their child
are not impacted by the child’s complaints when they are voiced
in the real world (Celani, 2005). This parallels Fairbairn’s (1944)
description, found later in the same paragraph as the preceding
quotation, “At the same time his sense of badness is further com-
plicated by the sense of utter impotence which he also experi-
ences” (p. 113). It is this extreme power differential between par-
ent and child, coupled with the child’s absolute dependency on
his or her objects that led Fairbairn to recognize that the child
was forced to use extreme defenses to hide from parental hate
and rage, while clinging to a fantasy of hope imagined by the
libidinal ego as existing in the exciting part-object. This asym-
metry of power forces the child to hide from the reality that the
very objects that abuse him are the same people upon whom he
is completely dependent.
Ogden’s passage on the attachment between the antilibidinal
ego and the rejecting object does not imply that the individual’s
attachment on the other side of the split is less intense. The excit-
ing object acts as a point of hope in the individual’s bleak world.
I have noted that the libidinal ego seems more available to aware-
ness as it is less threatening to the central ego and appears when
the individual fears an abandonment crisis (Celani, 2014b). Fair-
bairn (1944) noted that the need-driven attachment of the libidi-
nal ego to the exciting object was exceedingly powerful, as its loss
would end all hope for love in the future: “There can be no room
for doubt that the obstinate attachment of the libidinal ego to the
exciting object and its reluctance to renounce this object consti-
tute a particularly formidable source of resistance—and one that
352 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

plays no small part in determining what is known as the negative

therapeutic reaction” (p. 117).
This is an understatement, since giving up the attachments be-
tween the sub-egos and their respective objects appears to the
patient as a potential annihilation of significant parts of the self.
The child has invested a large portion of intense emotionality in
these inner relationships, as external relationships are difficult to
maintain because they are distorted by transferences and demand
mature behavior that is not in the child’s repertoire. The attach-
ments between the two sub-egos and their respective objects give
the child’s life meaning and purpose.

FAIRBAIRN’S MODEL OF CHANGE AND THE ROLE OF THE

GOOD OBJECT

Fairbairn clearly laid out the goals of psychoanalytic treatment

in his 1958 paper:

The chief aim of psycho-analytical treatment is to promote a maximum

“synthesis” of the structures into which the original ego has been split,
in the setting of a therapeutic relationship with the analyst. Involved
in the achievement of this aim are two further aims, viz., (a) a
maximum reduction of persisting infantile dependence, and
(b) a maximum reduction of that hatred of the libidinal object
which, according to my theory, is ultimately responsible for the
splitting of the ego. (p. 380, emphasis in original)

Typically, Fairbairn was able to identify goals accurately but was

very brief when it came to offering directives on how to achieve
the goals he identified. I will address all of these goals: synthesis
of the part structures into the central ego, development of emo-
tional maturity, and the unearthing and neutralization of the pa-
tient’s unrecognized hate and need of the bad object. One of the
key factors of treatment using this model is the role of the inter-
nalized good object; Fairbairn underestimated how important it is
in promoting the synthesis of the patient’s ego structures. Green-
berg and Mitchell (1983) noted in this regard: “Although Fair-
bairn argues that good relationships are longed for and required
for healthy development, he does not account for the residues of
DAVID P. CELANI 353

good experiences and gratifying relationships, the establishment

of healthy identifications , authentic values, and so on” (p. 180).
The quotation from Pine at the beginning of this paper sup-
ports the concept that internalization of good object experiences
form the substrate of the central ego and are the basis of a stable
and resilient personality structure. Fairbairn (1943) assumed that
good objects were only internalized as a defense against bad ob-
jects that had been already taken in (p. 66). His logic was based on
his view that good objects were freely available in the world and
did not have to be internalized because internalization was the
first step in the defensive/dissociative process that allowed the
child to hide from the badness of his or her objects by banishing
them to the unconscious. Since the good object is characterized
by support and love, Fairbairn assumed that the child did not
have to hide them in his or her unconscious. This assumption has
been examined by Scharff and Scharff (2000):

In Fairbairn’s model, however, the introjection of good experi-

ence comes as a kind of afterthought: good objects are only
introjected to compensate for bad ([Fairbairn,] 1952). Klein
disagreed with Fairbairn’s ideas that introjection of good ex-
perience was secondary. She thought that under the influence
of the life instinct, good experience is also taken in from the
beginning. Current infant research demonstrates that she was
right that infants, and all of us, take in good and bad experi-
ence. But we think that it happens, not because of the life and
death instincts (as she thought), but simply because we are built
to take in all kinds of experience as we relate in order to grow
into a person. The realities of all aspects of external experience
and our perceptions of them provide the building blocks for
our psychic structure. (pp. 219-220)

Scharff and Scharff’s view most closely matches clinical observa-

tions regarding individuals with healthy ego structures who are
able to rely on their own internal resources in terms of contain-
ing their anxiety and self-comforting while in distress. Greenson
(1971) reported an extraordinary clinical example from World
War II of a positive internalized good object in a young Air Force
photographer who suffered burns from caustic gasoline that
flooded his plane when it was hit by enemy fire. During his re-
354 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

covery, the airman began “hearing” a lullaby in Flemish that was

sung to him by his mother (whom he did not consciously remem-
ber) and who had tragically died before his second birthday. His
early positive unconscious experiences returned and comforted
him during his extreme physical crisis.
Fairbairn’s approach to the process of change appears in small
fragments throughout his writings from 1943 onward, and cul-
minates in his 1958 paper on treatment. He recognized that the
external good object played a key role in releasing bad objects
from the unconscious. He assumed that the attachment between
the analyst and the patient functioned as a catalyst by offering
the patient an alternative good object on which to depend, thus
reducing the patient’s attachment to his or her internalized bad
objects. The following passage demonstrates Fairbairn’s (1943)
clear awareness of the importance of this relationship:

Nevertheless, I cannot help feeling that such results must be

attributed, in part at least, to the fact that in the transference
situation the patient is provided with an unwontedly good
object, and is thereby placed in a position to risk a release of
his internalized bad objects from the unconscious and so to
provide conditions for the libidinal cathexis of these objects to
be dissolved—albeit he is also under a temptation to exploit a
“good” relationship with the analyst as a defense against taking
the risk. (p. 69)

Thus, the analyst becomes an alternative object that takes the

place of the original object, one who will listen attentively to the
patient’s pain while acting as an ally. Fairbairn warns that the pa-
tient may attempt to exploit the transference by engaging in a
good-object relationship without confronting the dissociated trau-
mas that were experienced at the hands of his or her parents. The
larger point, which is fundamental to Fairbairn’s model, is that ev-
ery self needs an object for self-creation or for its redevelopment
(Mitchell, 2000). No child, or underdeveloped adult patient, can
develop a self in an objectless world, and the analyst or therapist
becomes the “new” object upon whom the patient focuses dur-
ing the development of his or her increasingly integrated self, as
Mitchell (2000) explains:
DAVID P. CELANI 355

First, self-formation and other-object formation are inseparable.

Because libido is “object-seeking,” it makes no sense psycho-
logically to think of a self except in relation to an other. And
because others become psychically relevant only when invested
by the self, it makes no sense to think of objects outside of rela-
tionships with versions of the self. (p. 63)

The analyst who takes on the task of becoming an alternative to

the patient’s internal (and to some extent, external) objects will
encounter powerful resistances that are hostile to his or her posi-
tion, despite the analyst’s benevolent intentions. This is in part
a reaction of the patient’s weakened central self, which, as men-
tioned previously, has a more intense need of the ideal object than
does a normal adult. The ideal (part) object has consistently failed
to meet the patient’s legitimate developmental needs over many
years, thus keeping him or her fixated at a younger age. The pa-
tient’s unmet dependencies increase over time (as more and more
of his or her developmental needs are unmet as time passes), and
therefore his or her attachment to the bad object is increased.
Seinfeld (1990) addressed both the patient’s resistance to a new
good object and, even more fundamentally, his or her inability
to locate, understand, and even accept goodness from another
person: “In the negative therapeutic reaction, both the structural
deficit and the identification with the bad object account for the
patient’s inability to accept the good object. From the perspective
of the structural deficit, the therapist as a potential good object is
perceived as alien, strange and unfamiliar” (p. 12).
Seinfeld defines the “structural deficit” as a lack of positive
internal objects because the central ego has had too few interac-
tions with a healthy and supportive ideal object. As Seinfeld notes,
many individuals with histories of emotional deprivation are un-
able to identify and relate to the goodness of the analyst. This de-
fense is overcome in most patients by the honesty, availability, and
patience of the analyst. For example, McLaughlin (1996) cites the
power of the analyst’s careful listening to the patient’s story as one
of the pathways that defeats the patient’s wariness of a new object:

The sustained quality of listening affords the patient the fun-

damental experience of being believed. . . . “Believing” here
356 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

connotes multiple levels of meaning. It starts with a common-

place analytic acceptance of patients’ stated views as indeed a
reflection of something in themselves that they need to convey.
. . . It is a face value acknowledgment of the impact and value
of patients’ views, lived out through the analyst’s sustained com-
mitment to exploring and expanding the further significance
that patients can come to see in what they have said, in the light
of their shared quest. (p. 203, emphasis in original)

Clinical practice demonstrates that some individuals are so un-

trusting and suspicious that they never overcome their wariness
of, or outright hostility toward, the goodness of the analyst, thus
making analytic treatment outside their range of possibility. Oth-
ers, who have less traumatic histories, are able to cooperate.
When the analyst is accepted as the partner to the patient’s
central ego, the relationship between them helps to expand the
patient’s central self in terms of complexity and reach, as noted
by Skolnick (2014):

It follows, then, that an important aim of the good object in the

therapeutic process is to provide the patient with an opportu-
nity to relate with the analyst in multiple new configurations.
The internalization of new dynamic interactions will serve to
restructure the patient’s ego/self inasmuch as Fairbairn under-
stood the self as always interacting with and being structured by
an other’s self. . . . The analyst’s provision of new-ways-of—be-
ing, both cognitively and affectively, become structured into a
patient’s expanded and expanding self. Over time, patients ac-
cumulate new ways of being with an other woven and textured
into their existing dynamic structures (p. 253).

Skolnick (2014) calls this close, permeable identification between

the patient and analyst “dynamic identification,” and this process
allows the patient to “restock” his or her central ego with good
object memories of himself or herself in a relationship with the
analyst. Once the patient becomes deeply involved in these intro-
jective processes, his or her ability to trust the analyst is increased
exponentially. Only when this trust is achieved will the patient
be able to tolerate releasing the internalized bad objects that are
lodged in his or her internal world, a point made by Fairbairn
(1943): “The bad objects can only be safely released, however,
DAVID P. CELANI 357

if the analyst has become established as a sufficiently good ob-

ject for the patient. Otherwise the resulting insecurity may prove
insupportable” (p. 70). Thus, the first goal of treatment is to de-
velop a close and mutually permeable relationship between the
patient and analyst that will allow for the release of bad objects,
which simultaneously allows the patient to take in the goodness
that is being offered to him or her within the therapeutic dyad.

THE RELEASE OF BAD OBJECTS

The next analytic task involves introducing the patient’s central

ego to the two mostly hidden pairs of internalized part-selves and
part-objects. The analyst’s goal is to help the central ego incorpo-
rate the separate realities hidden in the mostly dissociated sub-
structures in the patient’s inner world. The goal is the synthesis
of these separate substructures into the central ego. The gradual
awareness of these split-off structures expose the previously for-
bidden dissociated material, specifically, the child’s dissociated
frustration and rage, to his or her central ego, where it can be
processed and metabolized by the now stronger central self with
the aid and support of the analyst’s ego. This is precisely the goal
of Fairbairn’s (1944) analytic approach:

It follows from what precedes that among the various aims

of analytical technique should be (1) to enable the patient to
release from his unconscious “buried” bad objects which have
been internalized because originally they seemed indispensable,
and which have been repressed because originally they seemed
intolerable, and (2) to provide a dissolution of the libidinal
bonds whereby the patient is attached to these hitherto indis-
pensable bad objects. (p. 74)

Fairbairn (1958), as quoted earlier, described the libidinal bond

to the object as “hatred of the libidinal object which, according to
my theory, is ultimately responsible for the splitting of the ego”
(p. 380). The hatred of the libidinal object (the rejecting object) is
based on frustrated love and unmet needs, and the dissolution of
this unconscious frustration is the single most important aspect
of treatment. The Fairbairnian goal of treatment is to have the
patient’s maturing central ego be able to “see,” appreciate, and
358 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

accept the traumatic, depriving, and infuriating relationship that

the patient experienced at the hands of his or her objects. As the
patient shifts his or her dependency away from the bad object and
on to the analyst, the patient’s central ego will be increasingly able
to tolerate the frustration and rage once felt toward the failed ob-
ject, and these once forbidden emotions can be processed by the
central ego. As treatment continues, the central ego will take over
and incorporate the once isolated realities that were previously
dissociated in the four substructures. This is the “synthesis” that
Fairbairn referred to in the earlier quotation.
The basic therapeutic technique that I have advocated (Cel-
ani, 1993, 2010, 2014a), starts with the development of a clinical
narrative (Schafer, 1996, p. 239) between the analyst and the pa-
tient’s central ego that (unlike other analytic narratives) focuses
almost exclusively on the apparently minor traumas from paren-
tal failures that the patient can dare to verbalize at the outset
of treatment. Over time the analyst gradually, but deliberately,
continues the focus on parental failures, which slowly introduces
the patient’s central ego to increasingly distressing aspects of his
or her developmental history. As mentioned previously, the cen-
tral ego is very sensitive to any implication that the original ideal
object(s) has failed him or her, and the analyst must be prepared
to abandon aspects of inquiry, or even reverse positions (Celani,
1993, 2010), so as not to make the patient more defensive, resis-
tant, and anxious than he or she already is.
Interestingly, Laing (1972) has noted a similar parallel in his
discussion of change and growth within poorly differentiated
families. Change and separation from a dysfunctional family re-
quires that the individual destroy the fantasy of a functioning and
united “family” inside of himself or herself, in order to become free
of ongoing dependency: “Dilemmas abound. If I do not destroy
the ‘family,’ the ‘family’ will destroy me” (Laing, 1972, p. 14). In
Fairbairnian terms, the patient has already destroyed his or her
intact ego and split it into antagonistic parts in order to become
blind to the once intolerable traumas he or she experienced,
which in turn allows the patient to remain attached to a shared
fantasy of a good “family.” In the following passage Laing (1972)
describes the critical importance of all members of the “family”
DAVID P. CELANI 359

maintaining an illusory, shared fantasy of a united family in their

internal worlds in order to avoid feelings of abandonment:

Each family member incarnates a structure derived from rela-

tions between members. This family-in-common shared group
presence exists in so far as each member has it inside himself. . . .
Each member of the family may require the other members to
keep the same “family” imago inside themselves. Each person’s
identity then rests on a shared “family” inside the others, who,
by that token, are themselves in the same family. To be in the
same family is to feel the same “family” inside. (p. 13, emphasis in
original)

The analyst’s gradual and sensitive introduction of a new reality is

designed to challenge the shared fantasy of a “good” family, and
replace it with a realistic, grounded- in- reality view. The analyst
lends his or her ego to the patient and validates the reality of
the traumatic events to which he or she was exposed. The ana-
lytic goal is to keep these developmental realities in front of the
patient’s central ego so they will not be ignored, dismissed, or
dissociated once again. As mentioned, the patient will shift his
or her dependencies away from this fantasy family and on to the
analyst, which is an essential step in the dissolution of the bond
to the bad object.
Fairbairn’s statement regarding the effects of the “unwontedly
good object” does not reflect the enormity of the anxiety faced
by the patient, and does not reflect the intensity of the actual
clinical process. The ferocity of the patient’s attachments, and
the delicacy required on the part of the analyst while introducing
the patient’s central ego to its dissociated, denied, and minimized
traumas are at the very core of this treatment process (Celani,
2010). Premature exposure of the patient to his or her banished
knowledge—which can come from a sudden de-repression of ma-
terial in dreams, or from overzealous technique—will overwhelm
the patient (Celani, 2010, pp. 46-47). When this happens, the pa-
tient’s compromised central ego will not be able to tolerate the
sudden loss of his or her objects, and the patient can be plunged
into an abandonment crisis (despite the fact that the bad objects
the patient is losing did him or her harm), a point made by Fair-
360 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

bairn (1943) in the following passage: “There is now little doubt

in my mind that . . . .the deepest source of resistance is fear of the
release of bad objects from the unconscious; for, when such bad
objects are released, the world around the patient becomes peo-
pled with devils which are too terrifying for him to face” (p. 69).
This colorful description accurately portrays the consequence
to a patient who prematurely encounters a too-clear picture of his
or her developmental history. All the patient’s defenses have been
erected to avoid just such a reality. The goal is to avoid having the
patient suddenly face the complete loss of his or her objects as
well as the illusory but identity-supporting sense of belonging to
a functioning family, until a new structure is in place.

RESISTANCE FROM THE STRUCTURES THEMSELVES

I have artificially divided the treatment process into four parts:

becoming a good object, unearthing bad object memories, en-
gaging in direct contact with the substructures, and supporting
the reestablishment of the patient’s ongoing developmental pro-
cess. Not surprisingly, all of these processes co-occur. The split-off
structures exert resistances during treatment by misidentifying
the analyst as being equivalent to one of the internalized objects
(Celani, 1998). Fairbairn never discussed techniques to avoid or
to ameliorate patient transferences, but rather warned the analyst
not to get “press-ganged” into the patient’s interior world:

Thus, in a sense, psycho-analytical treatment resolves itself into a

struggle on the part of the patient to press-gang his relationship with
the analyst into the closed system of the inner world through the agency
of transference, and a determination on the part of the analyst to effect
a breach in this closed system and to provide conditions under which,
in the setting of a therapeutic relationship, the patient may be induced
to accept the open system of outer reality. (1958, p. 385, emphasis in
original)

Fairbairn used the term “press gang” as a description of the pa-

tient seeing the analyst as identical to one of his preexisting inter-
nalized objects, and the analyst unwittingly complying by being
induced to respond in a reciprocal manner toward the dominant
structure. The structures make themselves known during the ther-
DAVID P. CELANI 361

apeutic process through sudden ego shifts in the patient, which

have been provoked during the narrative when the material being
discussed threatens one of the four of them. When this occurs,
the substructure will become the dominant ego state and will take
over the interaction with the analyst. Each of these four substruc-
tures is a small but functional personality, with a specific agenda
and a unique view of the world, a view that is not known to, or
shared by, the other structures. Davies (1998) uses the metaphor
of a play in which one actor (part-self) after another confronts
the analyst during the dialogue. During the course of treatment
the analyst will have to face (up to) four dissociated selves, and
each will display a different view of him or her. Fairbairn’s model
affords the therapist a fundamental platform from which to un-
derstand what is going on in the interaction, as the substructures
within any given patient present themselves during the course of
treatment. I have found that the most important challenge for the
analyst who is working with deeply split patients is to be aware of
the structure with whom he or she is interacting. Lack of this aware-
ness can lead to rapidly escalating enactments and transference–
countertransference tangles that are difficult to understand and
to repair (Celani, 2010).
The analyst must have a strategy for dealing with these struc-
tures when they arise and confront him or her with their aggres-
sive and radically disjointed points of view. All the substructures
are infantile and unresponsive to logic, so interpretations made
when the patient is dominated by one of the substructures will
simply frustrate and enrage the sub-ego, as the substructures can-
not see the larger picture. The treatment approach that I advocate
responds to these part-structures’ greatest vulnerability, which is
their rigidity, as Skolnick (2014) indicates: “Bad objects require
immutable truths, truths that demand absolute adherence in or-
der to survive. All doubt must be destroyed. If any uncertainty is
entertained, the absolute truth and meaning of a bad object is in
mortal jeopardy” (p. 251).
Because of this rigidity, I have found that interacting direct-
ly with patients’ substructures is not as perilous as is generally
thought because the substructures are frequently forgiving. That
is, if the analyst makes a mistake by being too forceful and pro-
vokes a heretofore repressed ego state into emerging unexpect-
362 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

edly, he or she can appease that ego state by simply backing off
and agreeing with its position. For example, if the patient’s anti-
libidinal ego is dominant (which is the most common substruc-
ture to take over the executive position; Celani, 2010), the analyst
will be seen as identical to the rejecting object, and the patient
will try to provoke the analyst to respond toward him or her in a
rejecting manner. This transformation of the analyst (Levenson,
1972/1995) into a character from the internal world will stop all
therapeutic progress, because the analyst is seen as an enemy who
is to be fought and resisted at all costs. When the analyst is en-
gaged by the bitter and complaining antilibidinal ego, he or she
will not face direct aggression because the patient’s antilibidinal
ego is as dependent on, and fearful of, the analyst as it was of the
original overwhelming parent. However, the analyst will face a
barrage of complaints about the lack of appropriateness of the
treatment, his or her skill level, the cost of the treatment, and the
unfairness of the relationship. The analyst is “invited” to become
a rejecting object by using his or her power position (as did the
original rejecting object) in some manner and dismissing the pa-
tient’s concerns. If this occurs, the analytic pair would reenact the
original childhood scenario, and the patient’s convictions regard-
ing the badness of objects would be strengthened.
A simple disarming response directed toward the antilibidinal
ego is to acknowledge the power differences and empathize with
the reality that the patient has experienced a difficult childhood
that made him or her resentful of anyone in a parentlike position.
This style of response gives the passive–aggressive antilibidinal
ego no one with whom to fight. This approach may sound “dis-
honest” in that the analyst is deliberately appeasing the part-ego
structure and is not being completely authentic. However, the pa-
tient’s split structure will see no such inauthenticity, as all the
temporarily dominant substructure seeks is a partner with whom
to fight (which would be equivalent to Fairbairn’s concept of
“press-ganging” the analyst into the inner world) or, conversely, to
receive validation of its position. Antilibidinal ego transferences
can also take place in the external world when the patient acts
out to undermine the treatment process. Two of my patients, who
knew each other from the insular law enforcement community,
privately agreed to undermine my position that random sexual-
DAVID P. CELANI 363

ity is ultimately self-defeating. They deliberately began a loveless

sexual affair to defy me behind my back. Their behavior was a
conscious expression of the passive–aggressive antilibidinal posi-
tion that automatically opposes anything that was said by me, as I
was experienced as the new rejecting object.
In contrast to the antilibidinal-ego dominated patient, the
patient who identifies with his or her internalized rejecting ob-
ject will attack the therapist directly in an absolute and secure
manner, as this structure does not feel dependent upon the ana-
lyst at all. The rejecting object will attack in short, furious, and
contemptuous sallies, thus engaging the therapist’s antilibidinal
self. The fury of rejecting object attacks can provoke extreme
countertransferences in the analyst, who prefers to see himself or
herself as helping and working in the patient’s best interests. For
example, the analyst may be exploring a patient’s description of
a frustrating parent–child interaction (with a patient who is oper-
ating out of his or her central ego), when he or she is suddenly
confronted by a shift of ego state to the patient’s rejecting object
substructure. This structure may angrily defend the act that is
being discussed (such as the description by the patient of being
excessively punished as a child) as being completely justified, that
is, as appropriate parental discipline. The interaction between the
analyst and the patient’s central ego has provoked the rejecting
object sub-ego to emerge from the unconscious and defend itself.
A disarming and reasonable response to the rejecting object po-
sition will, in most cases, end the substructure’s complaint, and
it will be replaced by the central ego. As with the antilibidinal
ego, any attempt to offer a direct interpretation to the rejecting
object will further enrage this particularly intemperate structure.
A great benefit of these de-repressions is that the analyst gets to
experience the logic, and even the tone, of the actual object that
has been internalized, but these insights can only be used later in
treatment as interpretations when the central ego has regained
its dominance. Skolnick (2014), who writes from the Fairbairnian
perspective but does not address the individual substructures, has
addressed the issue of patient attacks. He suggests that the most
important strategy when faced with the aggressive substructures
is to “survive the attack”:
364 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

What do we mean by survival? . . . We are referring to the ana-

lyst not succumbing to the patient’s omnipotence, not disap-
pearing either consciously or unconsciously in the face of the
patient’s conscious or unconscious fantasy of having destroyed
us. We do not abandon, retaliate, or fall apart. That we survive
ensures that the patient’s subjective omnipotence is challenged
so that gradually he or she can tolerate the ongoing tension of
surviving and tolerating an existence in which one must share
the stage with others, while being allowed some measure of
prime time as well. (p. 255)

Other patients may be dominated by their libidinal ego struc-

tures, and these individuals will approach the analyst as if he or
she contains the unlimited promise of love, which is an invitation
for a countertransference response of grandiosity in the analytic
partner. Here, the appropriate response is one of humility and
fallibility, which is surely the most authentic response in any ana-
lyst’s repertoire. A second pathway to the patient’s libidinal ego
structure can suddenly open up if the patient’s libidinal ego is
focused on the failed parent, as opposed to the analyst, as the
exciting object. For instance, if the analyst prematurely verbalizes
disapprobation toward that object, the patient’s central ego will
be supplanted by the threatened libidinal ego, who might defen-
sively proclaim that the parent under discussion was an exceed-
ingly loving parent who does not deserve such hostile judgment.
This split might come on the heels of the patient’s recall of a
horrific event of abuse that overwhelmed the analyst. This sud-
den shift of ego state in the patient suggests that he or she still
depends upon the fantasy that there is hidden goodness and love
in the object, even if the parent in question is no longer alive.
This discontinuous outburst suggests that the analyst’s spontane-
ous response to the patient’s abuse revealed too much dissociated
truth to the patient’s central ego and provoked an abandonment
crisis. Again, the strategy is to appease the substructure that has
emerged to protect its narrow reality. When it is satisfied, and
when the analyst does not further provoke it, it will return to the
unconscious, its mission accomplished.
The least frequent substructure to emerge and engage the ana-
lyst directly is when the patient identifies with the exciting object
(Celani, 2010) and tries to stimulate the analyst’s need for self-es-
DAVID P. CELANI 365

teem based on his or her success with that particular patient. The
exciting-object patient might promise a rush of accomplishment
in the analyst if he or she is able to succeed in treating an “inter-
esting, complex, and important person.” This structure is seeking
to activate hubris in the analyst, and if the patient succeeds the
analyst will face endless frustration. Again, a mild response to the
substructure is to note that all patients are worth helping, includ-
ing the present patient.
As time goes on, interpretations can be made when the pa-
tient’s central ego has grown and regained control of the now less-
powerful substructures. These interpretations can include charac-
terizations of the patient’s structures, including identifying which
objects from the family of origin they represent, and how (and
why) they became part of the patient’s inner world during his or
her development. Naturally, there is wide variation between the
contents of the substructures from different diagnostic groups.
For example, the antilibidinal ego of the obsessional (Celani,
2007) contains attitudes and resentments unknown to the anti-
libidinal ego of the hysteric (Celani, 2001); however, both struc-
tures were developed as a reaction to intolerable disappointments
in one or the other parental objects.
I do not want to imply that all transferences can be waved away
with a few well-chosen words. In fact, some patients will confront
the analyst with the same accusations from the same substructure
hundreds and hundreds of times over the course of a long treat-
ment. Some individuals seem to be continuously dominated by
one of the four substructures (most often the antilibidinal ego),
and they appear to have no central ego with which to work. When
this occurs, progress will only be made when the analyst has been
able to nurture the development of the central ego, which may take
a large number of sessions to strengthen. The goal is the same for
all patients: Avoid debates with the substructures, and deal mainly
with the reality-based central ego. By staying in contact with the
central ego as much as possible, the analyst is supporting an open
system relationship with the patient, which over time will become
the prototype for the patient’s relationships with others. The goal
of this therapeutic strategy is to support the patient’s central ego
vision of his or her failed objects to the point where this structure
can tolerate an ambivalent and integrated view of the parental ob-
366 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

jects. Memories, opinions, and emotional reactions toward his or

her objects that would have driven the patent out of the office and
into the street in a blind panic at the outset of treatment can be
discussed with equanimity after the central ego has redeveloped
in relation to the analyst. This integrated state indicates that the
patient’s central ego is fully aware of the previously dissociated
material that had been isolated in his or her substructures.

REACTIVATION OF THE PATIENT’S DEVELOPMENTAL

PROCESS

The final task of treatment is to allow the relationship between

the analyst and patient to restart the natural psychological devel-
opmental process that was abandoned by the patient when his or
her objects refused to support him or her in childhood. Fairbairn
stated that fixation on the maternal object was a consequence of
either maternal indifference or possessiveness, which convinced
the child that he or she was not loved “That, influenced by a re-
sultant sense of deprivation and inferiority, they remained pro-
foundly fixated upon their mother” (Fairbairn, 1940, p. 23). The
fixation on the bad object stalls development as the child fears
any separation from the object might cause him or her to miss
a moment of maternal approbation. Second, the external world
appears frightening and out of the child’s reach, so a close attach-
ment to the only object he or she knows seems mandatory. As
the child’s interpersonal and social development stalls, reliance
on the inner world increases and soon becomes more important
than the external world. Fairbairn (1940) lists the consequences
of maternal deprivation on the child that result in his or her de-
veloping a “schizoid character”: “These are (1) an attitude of om-
nipotence, (2) an attitude of isolation and detachment, and (3) a
preoccupation with inner reality” (p. 6). The analyst’s interven-
tions are designed to reduce all three of these consequences and
foster the patient’s redevelopment from dependency to mature
interdependence. Once again Fairbairn saw the (external) inter-
personal relationship between the patient and analyst as provid-
ing the patient with needed resources that were missed out on
during his or her development.
DAVID P. CELANI 367

The existence of such a personal relationship in outer reality

not only serves the function of providing a means of correcting
the distorted relationships which prevail in inner reality and
influence the reactions of the patient to outer objects, but pro-
vides the patient with an opportunity, denied to him in child-
hood, to undergo the process of emotional development in the
setting of an actual relationship with a reliable and beneficent
parental figure. (1958, p. 377)

The process of emotional redevelopment appears to start auto-

matically in patients as they begin to separate and individuate
from their families of origin. The analyst has very little to do ex-
cept remain in the background and express a general air of ap-
proval toward the patient. An obvious way to track their progress
is to assess their social relationships. As patients improve, they in-
teract with “less-bad” objects as they become intolerant of others
who behave badly toward them. Many deeply split patients remain
unmarried, as negotiating the complex world of an intimate rela-
tionship is far beyond their capacity. Over time, most patients will
expand their interpersonal horizons and test themselves in more
complex interpersonal situations, including trying out increased
levels of intimacy with the opposite sex, while using the analyst
as an anchor for their efforts. Other typical developmental mile-
stones are likely to occur, such as physically separating from the
bad object(s), setting up their own households, and expanding
business or professional goals during this last period of treatment.

CONCLUSION

This paper has offered the reader a compact description and

critique of Fairbairn’s object relations theory, which offers the
analytic community a completely different vision of human devel-
opment, psychopathology, and treatment as compared to other
models in the field. Fairbairn’s model, with some modifications,
sees human psychopathology as the consequence of damaging
but essential emotional attachments made between parts of the
child and his or her frustrating, neglectful, and unnurturing par-
ents. These attachments are fueled by intolerable frustration and
unrealistic hopes, and they have to be dissociated in the child’s
368 FAIRBAIRN’S THEORY OF CHANGE

unconscious lest the information they contain poison the view of

his or her objects as “good” parents, upon whom the child relies
on for physical and psychological well-being. These intense inter-
nal attachments diminish and compete with the child’s central
ego and distort his or her interactions with objects in the external
world. Thus, the neglected/abused individual suffers from under-
developed psychological and social skills and falls developmental-
ly behind peers due to experiencing too few emotionally nurtur-
ing events with his or her objects, which in turn causes the child
to cling to the only objects he or she has. The treatment process
outlined by Fairbairn consists of a substitution of the analyst as
the focal object in the redevelopment of the patient’s central ego.
This process will be met by resistances, including challenges to
the goodness of the analyst’s intentions, resistances to losing the
attachments to the internalized bad objects, and, finally, direct
challenges to the analyst by the threatened substructures.
Ironically, Fairbairn’s model, with its emphasis on the attach-
ment between the child and its objects, and its focus on disso-
ciation as the primary defensive process, has led to two areas of
research in the field that are far larger, in terms of numbers of
papers published, than the literature that is focused solely on his
model. The first area that he influenced directly is Attachment
Theory, which was pioneered by the work of Bowlby and his re-
search colleagues Ainsworth and Main. A brief review of this lit-
erature reveals more than a hundred published papers. Similarly,
Fairbairn’s emphasis on the critical importance of early trauma
and the consequent defense of dissociation has led to the flow-
ering of Trauma Theory, with its emphasis on altered states of
awareness due to physical or sexual trauma. The Journal of Trau-
ma and Dissociation is the center for the literature in this area,
and it continues to publish papers on these topics. Thus, Fair-
bairn’s model has had limited impact in the field of psychoanaly-
sis through direct work on his model in terms of new applications
and updates, and perhaps more through those areas that his work
has inspired.
DAVID P. CELANI 369

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