Thinking Through Fairbairn: Exploring the Object Relations Model of Mind

Thinking through Fairbairn offers parallel perspectives on Fairbairn’s work. It explores an extended interpretation of his ‘psychology of dynamic structure’ and applies that model to a number of different areas. Fairbairn’s Scottish origins are explored through his relationship with the work of Ian Suttie and Edward Glover. A new extended object relations model of phantasy and inner reality that reflects Fairbairn’s approach as represented by his contribution to the Controversial Discussions is also developed. In cooperation with Paul Finnegan, this version of Fairbairn’s model is applied to an understanding of multiple personality disorder or dissociative identity disorder. This model is combined with Fairbairn’s theory of art to provide an understanding of some ‘puzzle’ films based in trauma and dissociation. Fairbairn’s theory is presented here as a synthesis of classical and relational approaches, and his appropriation by relational theorists as a precursor to exclusively relational approaches challenged.

Table of Contents

PART I – SCOTTISH CONTEMPORARIES
CHAPTER ONE Suttie’s influence on Fairbairn’s object relations theory
CHAPTER TWO Fairbairn and Glover: object relationships and ego-nuclei
PART II MULTIPLE PERSONALITY DISORDER
CHAPTER THREE Fairbairn’s thinking on dissociative identity disorder and the development of his mature theory
CHAPTER FOUR Evelyn’s PhD in Wellness—a Fairbairnian understanding of the therapeutic relationship with a woman with dissociative identity disorder
PART III FILM
CHAPTER FIVE Failures of the “moral defence” in the films Shutter Island (Scorsese, 2010), Inception (Nolan, 2010), and Memento (Nolan, 2000): narcissism or schizoid personality disorder?
CHAPTER SIX Trauma, dissociation, and time distortion in some “puzzle” films
PART IV RELATIONAL PSYCHOANALYSIS
CHAPTER SEVEN A modest proposal: Fairbairn’s psychology of dynamic structure is not “between paradigms” but already a synthesis of classical and relational thinking
CHAPTER EIGHT Fairbairn’s object-relations-based psychology of dynamic structure, as a synthesis of the classical (thesis) and the relational (antithesis) in psychoanalytic theory
PART V INSTINCT, AFFECT, AND NEUROPSYCHOANALYSIS
CHAPTER NINE The place of instincts and affects in Fairbairn’s psychology of dynamic structures
CHAPTER TEN Thinking through Fairbairn redux