The Object Relation Theory - Essay Example

Object Relation Theory By Lecturer’s and Introduction The major assumption of Object Relation Theory is that all people or individuals, irrespective of their gender, logically seek affiliation with other people. This essay seeks to answer the question of what contribution feminist object relations theory can make toward our understanding of gendered social relationships. To answer this question, the essay is divided into six sections. The first section gives an overview of the object relation theory. The second delves more into the feminine object theory that is introduced in the first section. In the third section, critiques of rationality and dualism are presented before feminist science and feminist epistemology are dealt with in the fourth section. The fifth section presents the various views of self as regards the theories in discussion. Finally, before the concluding remarks, a sixth section compares feminist object theory to other related theories. Overview of the Object Relation Theory It is important to find out how well individuals form interpersonal relations and how much discrepancy arise from such relations (BENJAMIN, 1988, p13). This is a psychodynamic theory of human development that takes into consideration our ability to come up with a lasting attachment or relation with other persons on the basis of early experiences of departure from, and link with our main caregivers. On the other hand, feminism is used to describe a wide-ranging ideas about human experiences developed from a woman-centered point of view. Therefore, the feminism object relations theory tries to bring out the interconnection between female individuals and the society at large taking into consideration different impacts that this relation may give rise to (WEST & SHELDON-KELLER, 1994, p101). The feminism object theory is viewed by social workers as an advance as compared to psychoanalytical theory due to the fact that it considers women in the context of relationship other than individual entities (YOUNG, 1998). Often, people internalize their first relationships.Therefore, this means that our first relationships make such an impression that they determine how we approach any relationship from that point (JAGGAR, 2008, p3). In this regard, the very first relation in a woman is the main determinant of their personality and the quality of their interpersonal functioning. In terms of gender, the theory of feminism object theory tends to be more concerned with the value of separateness in terms of men, and connectedness for women, and how these actions of individuals give rise to difference in morality for women as described in the gender feminism theory (MCAULEY, DUBERLEY & JOHNSON, 2014, p8). One of the appreciated thinkers with this perspective is Carol Gilligan. She came up with a process in which women develop the ethic of care other than an ethic of justice on the basis of the value they place on relationships (BENJAMIN, 1988, p12). However, gender feminists assume that these female ethics are one and the same thing as male ethics despite the fact that women are considered inferior by men in the society. In his argument, Gilligan believes that all human beings would be well served if both ethics could be valued equally while on the other hand, scholars swear not to down their tools until the fight for equality is achieved (YOUNG, 1998, p7). This involves female ethic of caring, aimed at unification, replacing the male ethics of strenuous striving aimed at dividing people. Also, people’s bodies are not only different in terms of how they are sexed, but also differently gendered. Early child socialization trains boys and girls bodies on the diverse norms of bodily behaviour (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p3). Good examples of these norms are stress, physical freedom, aggressive play, large motor skills, informal and relaxed posture, and indifference in clothing, neatness and appearance. In boys, this includes physical constraint, subdued play, small motor skills, formal and modest posture, and self-consciousness about clothing, neatness and appearance for girls. When these behaviours and norms are appreciated by these genders, they greatly affect the phenomenology of personification (YOUNG, 1998, p4). They inform the mens and womens distinct first-personal knowledge of what it is like to inhabit a body, to put across capacities exceptional to one sex or another, a good example is breastfeeding, and to have understanding that is manifested through different body parts in differently sexed bodies such as orgasm. They also enable mens and womens appreciation of gendered behaviours that both can perform to differ in comfort, fluidity, feelings of “naturalness” or novelty, self-consciousness, confidence, awkwardness, shame, and so forth. One question these facts raise for feminist epistemology is to what degree of the leading forms of the world, especially of the relation between minds and bodies have seemed convincing because they conform to a male or masculine phenomenology. Further Understanding of the Feminism Object Theory To further understand this theory, there is the need to go through the feminism epistemology which involves the outgrowth of both feminism theorizing about gender and other traditional concerns (YOUNG, 1998, p5). It is all about ways in which gender does or ought to influence our conception of knowledge, knowing subjects and practices of inquiry and justification (BENJAMIN, 1988, p4). In this concern, these issues bring out the conceptions and practices of knowledge attribution, acquisition and justification which disadvantage women and other groups and try to change these conceptions in favour of those groups. To start with, from different studies on gender, it is evident that women have been disadvantaged by (ABEL, CHRISTIAN& MOGLEN, 1997, p180) first and foremost excluding them from inquiring any issues that concern them. Secondly, it disallows them epistemic authority. Thirdly, it is demeaning to their feminine cognitive styles and form of knowledge. Fourthly, these studies give rise to theories of women that depict them as being inferior, deviate or of importance only in the manner in which they serve men or male interests. Next is coming up with theories in which women activities and interests or gendered power relation appears only to be invisible, and lastly is coming up with ideas that is not of importance to people in the subordinate position or that strengthen gender with other social hierarchies. Critiques on Rationality and Dualism There have been a lot of critiques of rationality and dualism. Scholars have analysed ways in which symbols of masculinity operate in the development of ideals, rationality and objectivity. Developing feminist debate of object relation theory manifests the role of the symbolic fantasy and image in modern epistemological projects (BENJAMIN, 1988, p7). In this concern, the procedure of the metaphoric imaginary are labelled in the imaginary subjectivity and objectivity, and in the definition of the epistemic problems that consequently come to these imaginary issues (YOUNG, 1998, p8). The work done by such scholars as Lloyd and Bordo show that feminism is more concerned with the objectivity, autonomy and disinterestedness in assumption about the investigation, and on the assumption that the initial problem of epistemology are gender unbiased and that these are interrelated to the constitutive of gender relations (MCAULEY, DUBERLEY & JOHNSON, 2014, p16). The critics argue that scholars who came up with the roles played by women in the Anglo-American analytical traditions and science studies are much concerned on the cognitive roles of the imaginations, and the major development of feminist work on the affective and literary aspects of cognition and philosophy. On the dualism perspective, scholars argue that dualism nature/culture, rational/irrational, subject/object, and masculine/feminine undermine feminism’s epistemological issues, and that epistemology should aspire to do away and fight against any kind of dualism (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p9). Scholars argue that such fights can be achieved through feminist refusal to be generalized and be undermined in the modernist projects, including such issues as masculine/feminine and its importance in the characters acknowledgment. The major concern of the feminist epistemology is to eradicate epistemology as an on going concern on issues such as the genuineness, consistency and acknowledgement, and the undermining of gender classes (MCAULEY, DUBERLEY & JOHNSON, 2014, p18). The critics of feminist epistemology have stimulated those feminist critiques of reasonableness amounting to a valorisation of irrationality, a charge that misses the point of these critiques (BENJAMIN, 1988, p11). In this regard, if our actions of rationality are reconstructed also on the basis of the different scholars analysis that are double-edged in terms of rationality and irrationality in the assistance to describe dualism of masculine and feminine. The new ideas of feminist came up as a result of women taking part in science. Science has been marked by a lot of biasness in terms of gender, not that women are underrepresented in the science field, but also in the ways in which theories about gender behaviour are given dominantly evidential roles, and the very many theories that are conventionally accepted in the different fields. The critiques on gender bias have played a very significant role in the development of the scientific theory (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p183). Different scholars argue that different values in the theories are always operating in the evaluation of the evidence, justification and theory development, and that they are trying to bring up an epistemology for science that would make it less prone to gender biases as there is a need to understand the ways in which these values come into the scientific reasoning. Therefore, feminist theorist came up with theories that could allow values to be shared which are often invisible to the inquiries of the sciences. Nelsons work, for example, draws attention and critical questions on the work of Quine by making sure that his work covered a holistic approach in the questioning of the evidences and justification by being too much concerned on how information and knowledge is being held by different communities instead of individual owners who are biased members of such communities. Such scholars as Helen come out strongly to give their argument on the value of pluralism in the development of scientific models as a means of making the values and suppositions of scientific communities accessible for critical evaluation. Feminist Science and Feminist Epistemology Feminist science tries to bring out the facts that good science is not valued as opposed to free science due to the fact that good science usually is not ineradicable from the procedures of scientific inquiry and theory development (YOUNG, 1998, p14). In this concern, they are of the assumption that good science is science that can critically estimate the values and assumptions that operate in an epistemic way, in a scientific theory development, and in the procedural ways in which scientific problems are formulated (ELLIOTT, 2002, p19). Therefore, from them, a good science is a science that can develop mechanisms that can be used to calculate not only that outcome of inquiry, but also the procedures in which those results depend on raft of value-laden and theory-laden assumption and facts (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p185). In the long run, there is the feminist naturalized epistemology which takes into accounts the facts and ways in which information is more recognized in the community instead of individual representation. In this concern, naturalism is viewed as an approach that tries to bring out the known knowledge on the feminism naturalism (YOUNG, 1998, p19). This involves such issues as social, political and historical factors that can develop knowledge rather than misrepresent the knowledge. Feminism naturalism is all about a wide organized category of issues that are concerned with some of the approaches that control that scientific naturalism and other considering science in a wider field of human epistemic levels of want (MCAULEY, DUBERLEY & JOHNSON, 2014, p25). Feminism naturalized approaches usually come to misery over the category of normal levels in the development of the theory due to the fact that these issues of traditional and naturalistic desire are to give the descriptive report of knowledge. However, without digging back on what to the ways in which sexism, racism among other things can lead to deformation of the knowledge actions. Feminist epistemology may be viewed to have very few resources to come up with the best argument that present cultural and historical conditions that should be changed due to the fact that there is no way one can verify that one thing or the other is inherently unreliable. In this relation, we can view the psychoanalytic feminism that assumes that women’s ways of thinking and behaving is far much related to the women’s way of thinking. The variety of ways of thinking may be related to the biological, but often influenced by cultural and psychological conditions (YOUNG, 1998, p31). Often,feminine behaviour is characterised by kindness, humility, humbleness, supportiveness, understanding, compassion, tenderness, nurturance, intuitiveness, sensitivity, and unselfishness (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p187). On the other hand, masculine behaviour is characterized by strength of will, ambition, courage, independence, assertiveness, hardiness, rationality, and emotional control. In accordance with the psychoanalytical feminists, there is an assumption that these variances are more related to the issues that took place in the early childhood relationships (BENJAMIN, 1988, p29). It is well known all over the world that women are the primary caretakers of children,and often promote the development of the girl child as they relate to their mothers which in return promote the relatedness in addition to other feminism behaviours (SPRENGNETHER, 1990, p18). In this concern, the boy child views their mothers to be fundamentally different, especially when they face challenges in the society as they tend to perform the male roles. Another important scholar who has contributed amicably to this field of feminism is Nancy Chodorow (CHODOROW, 1989, p19). In her work, she came up with the integration between object-relation theory and feminism. This was not her own attempt, but it involved several scholars who worked together and developed the expressed psychoanalysis, which is very much related to the relational theory (BOLD, 2003, p41). From the literature, it is evident that the relational psychoanalysis and feminist theorists were so much interconnected in both the institutional and theoretical point of view due to the fact that NYU relational feminists were Mitchell earliest students (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p190). Despite the relational thinkers such as Hoffman and Stern drew their relational thinking from other sources that deal with philosophical issues, the whole field of relational theory interconnect with feminist theory in important situations (JONES, 1996, p28). From their work, it is evident that their work was already influenced by self-in-relation and objects of feminist relational thinkers (BOLD, 2003). The above scholars have strongly described Mitchell’s work based on relational methodology and the influence of her ideas. In this concern, they practiced and theorized a strong form of feminist relational psychoanalysis (BENJAMIN, 1988, p38). They are all related to their attempt with feminist psychoanalysts who came up with their thinking from self-psychology and object relation. In the relational psychoanalytical theory, too much was believed to have originated from the work on feminist theory and epistemology that has been included. What has become of much focus in the feminist theories is the relational self. This is observed in the work that was done in the 1980s with the gradient of difference feminism. In this regard, difference feminism is much concerned with the differences that exist between men and women and put great importance on the strengths that are commonly related to women that include relationship, concern and sentiment (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p191). Difference feminism recognizes any kind of oppression as demeaning, and devaluing the values that are linked with women’s identity, and attack form that propose the self as free, rational, genderless, ageless, and classless. Relational theorists therefore undermine the importance of the relationship of women’s selves. In her work, Miller depicts the construction of an interacting sense of self in a girl child. In this regard, a woman’s sense of self becomes very much well thought-out in such a manner in which they are able to form and further more maintain association in a relationship. In his work, Gilligan supported a relation self that develops some knowledge (BUHLE, 1998, p14). In difference feminism, the relational self is plural other than singular, and therefore women’s vote comes out from lives of connected, situated selves and not by using the truth of the unbiased rules.According to difference feminism, theorists of relational fundamentally argue that an examination of women’s experiences will give rise to better considerations of the nature of the self than can be seen in non-feminists accounts (TORONTO, 2005, p67). In the feminist investigation, women are viewed as caregivers for toddlers, and in so happening the developmental processes of women and relationship between the mother and developing child becomes the point of reference in the research (JONES, 1996, p41). The Views of Self Changes usually occur in the postclassical views of the self (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p195). Unlike the classical Freudian view, relational theorist imagine unconscious as involving a way of being in a sense of self, a person in relation to the other persons, bringing the unconscious close to the ego and the superego. Multiplicity and discontinuity are often put into a lot of consideration by relational theorists. Between the two, experiences of the self are used while attached to one of these. We have what is referred to as plural discontinuous self. This usually takes part of the initial unitary personality. It is worth noting that the self is discontinuous in nature and is usually made up of different configuration, different selves with different others (BOLD, 2003, p40). In this regard,the relational self is not just multiple and discontinuous, because relational theory is paying attention to the creative theoretical anxiety between a sense of rational, unitary self and the discontinuous and multiple self. The interesting part of this is the tension creation between the depiction of self as multiple and discontinuous, and self as integral and continuous. In so doing, psychoanalysis, self become a vacuum where different voices come from and are heard (ABEL, CHRISTIAN & MOGLEN, 1997, p197). Wide variety of feminists challenge the assumption that people are rational selectors and actors due to the fact that economists do view the subject as genderless, sexless, race-less etc. Comparison of Feminist Object Theory with other Theories Feminist object theory has some things in common with other feminist theorist and epistemologist in that they have an understanding of a ‘situated knower’ who is considered the major point of focus in epistemology (YOUNG, 1998). Feminist objectivity refers to situated knowledge which suggests a strong concept of objectivity, while denying the false objectivity behind the ideal of impartiality of the separated knower (BOLD, 2003). Feminist objectivity is all about limited location and situated knowledge, not interconnected and splitting of subjects and objects. There are four main transitions that can differentiate the feminist epistemology and subject in traditional epistemology. To start with, is that the knower is a historical subject which has a body and is visible (YOUNG, 1998, p60). Second is that there is no difference of any form between subject and object of knowledge. Third is that knowledge is collective and scientific knowledge is based on investigated facts. Fourth is that the agent of knowledge is heterogeneous, multiple and contradictory. Conclusion It is evident that feminists do not eliminate objectivity and science, but instead seek to improve it by correcting sexist and androcentric unfairness in scientific inquiry, and by promoting criticism of research from all points of view. In this, they do not refuse the fact that science, as in recent times, came up with genuine truths regarding women (ABEL, CHRISTIAN& MOGLEN, 1997, p199). However, the point of concern is that as it was earlier practiced it offers biased perspectives and only gave guided views in developing facts that served given human interests in material control and maintaining current social order in the society. Feminist epistemologists detect that the democratic and egalitarian custom for cognitive authority they acknowledge, in conjunction with their requirement that the scientific community be open and responsive to criticism from all directions in terms of the feminist field They are also mismatched with suppression of evidence, argument, or conclusions on political grounds, and with ignoring or suppressing evidence that destabilizes any theory, including theories inspired by feminist values (BENJAMIN, 1988, p48). From the sections discussed above, feminist object relation theory evidently gives invaluable insights into gendered social relationships. Reference List ABEL, E., CHRISTIAN, B., & MOGLEN, H. (1997). Female subjects in black and white race, psychoanalysis, feminism. Berkeley, University of California Press. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=4565. BENJAMIN, J. (1988). The bonds of love: psychoanalysis, feminism, and the problem of domination. New York, Pantheon Books. BOLD, J. (2003). The bonds of love: psychoanalysis, feminism, and the problem of domination. New York, Pantheon Books. BROTHERS, B. J. (2014). Attraction and Attachment Understanding Styles of Relationships. Hoboken, Taylor and Francis. http://public.eblib.com/EBLPublic/PublicView.do?ptiID=1596775 BUHLE, M. J. (1998). Feminism and its discontents a century of struggle with psychoanalysis. Cambridge, Mass, Harvard University Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10314221. CHODOROW, N. (1989). Feminism and psychoanalytic theory. New Haven [Conn.], Yale University Press. DIAMOND, D., BLATT, S. J., & LICHTENBERG, J. D. (2007). Attachment & sexuality. New York, Analytic Press. ELLIOTT, A. (2002). Psychoanalytic theory: an introduction. Durham, NC, Duke University Press. JAGGAR, A. M. (2008). Just methods: an interdisciplinary feminist reader. Boulder, CO, Paradigm Publishers. JONES, J. W. (1996). Religion and psychology in transition psychoanalysis, feminism, and theology. New Haven, Yale University Press. http://site.ebrary.com/id/10170800. MCAULEY, J., DUBERLEY, J., & JOHNSON, P. (2014). Organization theory: challenges and perspectives. Harlow, Pearson education limited. SPRENGNETHER, M. (1990). The spectral mother: Freud, feminism, and psychoanalysis. Ithaca, Cornell University Press. TORONTO, E. L. K. (2005). Psychoanalytic reflections on a gender-free case: into the void. London, Routledge. WEST, M. L., & SHELDON-KELLER, A. E. (1994). Patterns of relating: an adult attachment perspective. New York, Guilford Press. YOUNG-BRUEHL, E. (1998). Subject to biography: psychoanalysis, feminism, and writing womens lives. 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