Through the lens of:Ronald Fairbairn and Exciting Objects
Do you fall for emotionally unavailable partners? Do you feel as though you are always doing the chasing? Or are you drawn to people who seem interested at first, but then back off?
If this is the case, Ronald Fairbairn, a little-known Scottish psychotherapist, might have the answers for you. This article explores Fairbairn’s theory of Exciting and Rejecting Objects to help us understand these painful behaviour patterns.
Who was Ronald Fairbairn?
W. Ronald D. Fairbairn was born in 1889 and died in 1964. He lived in Edinburgh, distant from influential peers based in London with whom to exchange ideas. A brilliant but troubled man, Fairbairn was one of the main characters in British Object Relations, belonging to the Middle School, or Independent Group.
He worked as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist with deprived children who were taken from homes in which they were neglected, and in many cases physically or sexually abused, to be placed in clean, safe home environments. Fairbairn was fascinated to witness these children craving their insalubrious homes, no matter how bad their parents were. This led him to dismiss Freud’s libidinal drive theory – the idea that people are driven by the pleasure and pain principles – in favour of the idea that we are fundamentally guided by relationships, or deep attachment to objects. The children referred to their dysfunctional families as good, blamed themselves as being the source of all their parents’ problems, and believed themselves, rather than their parents, to be bad. These observations led to Fairbairn’s development of Rejecting and Exciting Objects, which we discuss below.
Fairbairn served in World War I and following his experiences with shellshock, went on to study medicine. Much of Fairbairn’s clinical work involved traumatised clients, including domestic abuse survivors so he was attuned to the dynamics of victims returning to perpetrators, and repetitive unhealthy relationships. Interestingly, he also worked with addiction, which could be argued to be – in the bind between the addicted person and their substance of choice – another type of dysfunctional relationship.
What are Objects?
In Object Relations theory, we are programmed to seek out Good Objects. For many of Fairbairn’s contemporaries, objects were regarded as people, or parts of people, often, the breast (Klein). Fairbairn disagreed. He highlighted the external world, his object being the relationship, with the focus on interpersonal relationships. He believed that the multi-faceted contacts we experience throughout life are what form our self-perception. For Fairbairn, the internalisation of bad objects was a specific, mental process. A child’s primary need was simply the recognition and acceptance of being a unique person in their own right.
Through his observations during clinical work, Fairbairn witnessed the extraordinary bond between the maternal figure and infant, and the infant’s total dependency upon her. Fairbairn believed that separation anxiety was the first type of anxiety that a child experiences.
Object splitting and ego splitting make up Fairbairn’s Endopsychic Structure: a consequence of a predetermined fall (it is noteworthy that he was of Christian faith) due to inadequate parenting. Again, Fairbairn broke from the classic psychoanalytical school of thought, this time, by asserting we are born as a whole, pristine, unitary ego (Grotstein, 1994, p. 350). He believed the fall is inevitable, due to environmental failure and poor parenting, ultimately leading to our fragmentation, which he classifies as the schizoid position. Fairbairn’s rather grim view was that parents cannot help but to fail. Optimal parenting – particularly in the modern age – is impossible.
It seems important to recognise that parents and carers may be unable to give the infant what they need for various, not necessarily nefarious, reasons. They may have a mental or physical impairment, be ill-attuned to their child, or the infant might have high needs for continuous availability for which the adult carer is not capable of providing. Parents may simply be exhausted or overwhelmed by competing responsibilities.
The ego according to Fairbairn
According to Fairbairn, the original ego is split into three, the only conscious part being the central ego. The unrepressed, central ego compares with Freud’s ego, and represents the core of the internalized object. The split off, bad parts, the libidinal ego and anti-libidinal ego, invested with emotional energy by the ego, thus carry parts of the ego with them into repression.
The needy child’s libidinal ego is strengthened through and seeks the Exciting Object: memories of the times a primary caregiver praised the child, and used behaviour which (if consistent) builds self-worth, and promises of more of this behaviour if the child behaves in a certain way. The antilibidinal ego develops when a maternal object demeans the child, and does not provide the consistent encouragement necessary for a healthy development of self-esteem, thus conveying messages of shame and self-loathing. Rejecting Objects refuse to give what is required. Because the anti-libidinal ego is so attached to the Rejecting Object, or the internal saboteur, it is hostile towards the libidinal ego, thus strengthening its repression by the central ego. Fairbairn referred to this process as indirect or secondary repression (Gomez, 1997). Later, Guntrip furthered the theory (which Fairbairn applauded) to include a regressed ego, split off from the libidinal ego, having given up hope that mother could ever be relied upon (Buckley, 1986, p. 452).
Although much of Fairbairn’s writing is complex, his voice encapsulates certain aspects of the human condition with an eloquent tone:
[It is better] to be a sinner in a world ruled by God than to live in a world ruled by the Devil.
(1994, p. 67)
This illuminates our inbuilt survival strategy designed to undermine a feeling that our caregiver (or in later life, partner) may be bad.
If the caregiver is seen to be deficient, the child’s survival is at risk, hence the use of phantasy plays into an infant’s inner world, building on the sporadic times a parental figure has provided the nurturing world the child needs to form a healthy self-soothing system. The child preserves the intactness of the parent at their own expense, projecting their own goodness to the parent, and internalising the Bad Object into their inner world. This schizoid state is experienced as an emptiness: love and relationships are seen as dangerous, the meaning and purpose of life, elusive.
If you have already developed an attachment to Exciting Objects in infancy, you might persist in repetition compulsion and similar relationship patterns throughout adolescence and into later life. Like the children who craved a return to their noxious homes in Fairbairn’s early clinical work, you seek out partners with whom you can replay your initial trauma. The struggles are ongoing because you are still unconsciously trying to build a relationship with the good mother and heal your wounds by placating the Exciting Object, in a distressing cycle. This leads to a phenomenon whereby victims of dysfunctional parenting question themselves, and a pattern of trusting others over oneself can be repeated in relationships.
How could therapy help?
It takes understanding and therapeutic work to gain insight and a certain amount of detachment. Fairbairn judged a successful therapeutic outcome to be supporting the client to return to their initial state of wholeness, through the reintegration of the split off parts into the client’s central ego.
Dysfunctional relationship patterns may be acted out during therapy. Therefore, the therapist might aim to support the expansion and growth of the whole ego through representing the Good Object. A client might strive to remain within this ideal object territory by remaining as the good client, with a relationship with the good therapist. Simply by listening to the client and holding space for them gratifies a sense of worth. The psychotherapist feels the client’s hope and fulfils the ideal object role.
However, this must be deeply examined and shaken up, as the client needs to let go of the Bad Objects. In so doing, the therapist may become vilified as the client’s split off fragments surface. At some point, the therapist is bound to cause dissatisfaction, by not having fully understood the client, or taking a holiday, for example, at which point – the theory goes – the client would split. The therapist is now seen as a Rejecting Object. If, through the therapeutic relationship, the dynamic can be examined and brought into light, reparations can take place. The model outcome is for the client to understand that they are seen with unconditional positive regard, and the therapist’s mistakes are part of being human rather than personal attacks. If so, the split-off objects can be reforged into the ideal object.
Fairbairn implicitly, rather than explicitly, states that we need to accept ourselves and others to allow psychological growth. Self-awareness is intertwined with the ability to self-soothe. When a person feels no need to seek assurance for their right to exist as a unique person, they pursue relationships which are respectful.
A healthy outcome is only possible if the client can reprogramme their survival strategy, and they come to believe that they are not sinners; the world is neither ruled by God nor the Devil, but they themselves have agency for forming, and are deserving of, loving, mutually satisfying relationships.
Case study– Mark (all ‘characters’ and case studies are invented)
Mark complains of repeatedly going for partners who aren’t right: often creative types, who cannot commit to responsible jobs nor lives. Their hedonistic lifestyles are attractive. He is offered a taste of how he perceives love to feel, while his choice of partner showers him with praise and affection… until, the love object is diverted to shinier things, whether it be his latest project, social event, or new friend. Mark feels rejected but that it must be his fault, so he tries harder. This painful cycle is repeated like an addiction. Every taste of affection feels intoxicating but is followed by torturous cooling off periods. Caught in this pattern dictated by his subconscious, he is further humiliated through feeling responsible for his pain. If he could only do better, he could enjoy a mutually fulfilling relationship.
Mark comes from a home where his parents were abusive. Due to the ties created as a survival strategy by Mark when he was a child, to make sense of his world, the connection he now feels towards the objects is strong, experienced as a magical pull or spiritual connection. Because the Exciting (or Rejecting) Object contains part of the abusive parent, the powerful feeling originates from the infant Mark’s primal unmet needs to be cherished. Like many traumatised people, Mark is very attuned to his intuition because his unconscious played a major role in his childhood experience of construing his world. However, he has learned to override his instincts as they have so often been invalidated in the past.
During his tumultuous relationships, Mark experiences feelings of intense relief when his partner is once again kind following a distressing exchange. His new version of reality and attempts to minimise or deny painful events feel soothing. He can then build his partner up in his mind again as an Exciting Object.
Mark seeks therapy due to overwhelming feelings of despair and shame after the latest romantic rejection – feelings he intellectually comprehends to be out of proportion. His therapist describes an adult version of Mark and a child version. Because Mark was hurt as a child, presently when he is rejected, he returns to the child version of himself. The purpose of his therapy is to grow into his adult version. Mark begins to understand his behaviour, and to heal. His therapist – through consistent containment, and respect for him as a person in his own right – enables his infantile dependency to begin to emerge into mature and mutual dependency, or interdependency.
The other pole of continuing to pursue dysfunctional relationships means the rejection of functional relationships.
If somebody has felt extremes of emotion since infancy, anything in between can feel unnerving, even frightening. These healthy normal feelings are unfamiliar. They were not used to make sense of their world during initial phases of life, and may be experienced as dangerous. When Mark pursues a relationship with somebody who consistently treats him with respect, he feels unsettled yet confused as to his resistance. Logically, Mark understands that he is being treated well (noteworthy is his new partner’s predictability which Mark sometimes dismisses as ‘boring’). These difficult feelings are worked through with his therapist who provides safe, nurturing containment. An ordinary relationship begins to symbolise a positive thing, as Mark learns, once again, to trust his instincts, as a mature adult self.
Fairbairn’s work is still relevant today
Fairbairn’s Exciting Object theory is still a relevant psychotherapeutic approach today, which can be used effectively to work through certain relational trauma. The therapeutic real relationship reigning over impulse-driven relations and interpretations can offer a setting for psychological healing. Despite reservations regarding his theory being based on the impossibility of perfect parenting equating to mental health being inconceivable, Fairbairn’s expansive clinical work with trauma brings a humane and warm understanding to enable healing for survivors of dysfunctional or abusive relationships. Many people who have been in therapy are indebted to his remedial work which has supported them towards flourishment. Fairbairn’s ideas make sense to me, and I incorporate them into my therapeutic practice.
References
Armstrong-Perlman, E.M. (1991) ‘The Allure of the Bad Object’, Journal of the British Association of Psychotherapists, 22.
Balint, M. (1956) Problems of human pleasure and behaviour. New York: Liveright.
Bion, W. R. (1962) Learning from Experience. London: William Heinemann.
Bowlby, J. (1969) Attachment. Volume I – Attachment and loss. London: Hogarth.
Buckley, P. (1986) Essential papers on Object Relations. New York University Press.
Celani, D. P. (2010) Fairbairn’s Object Relations Theory in the Clinical Setting, Colombia University Press.
Celani, D. P. (1995) The Illusion of Love: Why the Battered Woman Returns to Her Abuser, Colombia University Press.
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1994) Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality. Hove: Routledge.
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1958) ‘On the nature and aims of psycho-analytic treatment’ in International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 39(5), pp. 374-385.
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1994) ‘The repression and the return of bad objects (with special reference to the ‘war neuroses’) (1943)’ in Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality. Hove: Routledge, pp. 59-81.
Fairbairn, W. R. D. (1944). ‘Endopsychic structure considered in terms of object-relationships’ in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 25, pp. 70–93.
Gomez, L. An Introduction to Object Relations (1997). Bristol: Free Association Books Ltd.
Greenberg, J. R. and Mitchell, S. A. (1983) Object Relations in Psychoanalytic Theory. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press.
Grotstein. J. S. and Rinsley, D. B. (1994) Fairbairn and the origins of Object Relations. London: Free Association Books Ltd.
Kernberg, O. (1986) ‘Structural Derivatives of Object Relationships’, in Essential Papers on Object Relations, P. M. D. Buckley: New York and London: New York University Press.
Ogden T. H. (2010) ‘Why read Fairbairn?’ in The International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 91 (Issue 1). pp. 101-118.
Eilidh Horder Therapy 
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