Conceptualizing Our Interpersonal Impressions
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Conceptualizing our Interpersonal Impressions Conceptualizing our Interpersonal Impressions Mental Representations and Internal Objects By Gillian Steggles Conceptualizing our Interpersonal Impressions: Mental Representations and Internal Objects By Gillian Steggles This book first published 2015 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2015 by Gillian Steggles All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-7046-3 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-7046-7 Dedicated, belatedly, to Melanie Klein and Anna Freud TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures.............................................................................................. x List of Tables .............................................................................................. xi Foreword ................................................................................................... xii Bob Hinshelwood Preface ....................................................................................................... xv Acknowledgements ................................................................................. xvii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Part I: Mental Representations: A Historical Review Chapter One ................................................................................................. 8 The Early History of the Concept of “Mental Representations” Chapter Two .............................................................................................. 14 Re-Interpretation of Freud’s Concept of Representations Chapter Three ............................................................................................ 23 Contemporary Interpretations of the “Mental Representation” Concept Part II: Internal Objects: A Historical Review Chapter Four .............................................................................................. 36 Origins and Development of the Concept of “Internal Objects” Chapter Five .............................................................................................. 46 Consolidation of Klein’s Concept of Internal Objects Chapter Six ................................................................................................ 56 Contemporary Contributors to the “Internal Object” Concept viii Table of Contents Part III: The Freud-Klein Controversies: A Comparison of Mental Representations and Internal Objects Chapter Seven ............................................................................................ 68 Melanie Klein and Anna Freud Chapter Eight ............................................................................................. 78 Debate about Internal Objects Chapter Nine .............................................................................................. 84 Conceptualizing Internal Objects Chapter Ten ............................................................................................... 91 Joseph Sandler’s Contribution to the Relationship between Mental Representations and Internal Objects Chapter Eleven ........................................................................................ 108 Contemporary Advocates of Mental Representations and Internal Objects and a Historical Review Part IV: The Study Chapter Twelve ....................................................................................... 116 Methodologies Contemplated Chapter Thirteen ...................................................................................... 127 Methodologies Utilized Chapter Fourteen ..................................................................................... 139 Preparations for the Study Chapter Fifteen ........................................................................................ 153 The Pilot Study Chapter Sixteen ....................................................................................... 161 The Study Part V: Results and Data Analysis Chapter Seventeen ................................................................................... 170 Results of the Study Conceptualizing our Interpersonal Impressions ix Chapter Eighteen ..................................................................................... 188 Data Analysis of the Study Part VI: Discussion and Conclusions Chapter Nineteen ..................................................................................... 208 Discussion and Conclusions of the Study Appendix A: The Questionnaire .............................................................. 218 Appendix B: Participant 1’s Mother Transcript (processed) ................... 224 Appendix C: Participant 2’s Film Star Transcript (processed) ................ 227 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 231 Index ........................................................................................................ 243 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 7-1 Comparison of Anna Freud’s and Paula Heimann’s schedules for understanding causal relations involving unconscious phantasy and conscious fantasy (Hinshelwood, 1997) Figure 11-1 Clarification of the distinctions between mental representations and internal objects. Figure 14-1 Summary of historical criteria. Figure 14-2 The Dimensions of Meaning (Implicit TA themes). Figure 14-3 Refining Criteria for the Core Dimensions used in the Pilot Study. Figure 14-4 Results of the Pre-Pilot Exercise. Figure 14-5 Refining Criteria for the Dimensions of Meaning (characteristics that become the Implicit themes in the Thematic Analysis) used in the Pilot Study. Figure 16-1 The structure of the Questionnaire. Figure 16-2 Summary of the Questionnaire question types. Figure 16-3 The content of the Questionnaire questions. Figure 16-4 The strategy of the Questionnaire. Figure 16-5 Method for analysing the Questionnaire data to obtain the information required about the balance of the presence of a Mental Representation or an Internal Object for each Participant’s free association narrative. Figure 16-6 Scheme for finding the individual Participants’ differences in both Film Stars’ and Mothers’ results for each of Mental Representations and Internal Objects scores from the Questionnaire. Figure 17-1 The central nature of each Participant’s relationships with their chosen Film Star and with their Mother. Figure 17-2 Definitions of the Explicit, manifest, conscious, data-derived TA themes. Figure 17-3 The structure and relations of the Explicit and Implicit TA themes to each other. Figure 18-1 The statistical results of the Questionnaire. LIST OF TABLES Table 15-1 Summation of the instances of Mental Representation and Internal Object Dimensions of Meaning as they occurred in the transcripts of Pilot Study Participants A, B, D, H, J and K. Table 17-1 The Explicit TA coding frame. Table 17-2 Occurrence of Explicit themes in free association transcripts of participants P1-P10. Table 17-3 Free association textual frequency of occurrence of Implicit themes (Dimensions of Meaning) within participants’ narratives conceptualizing Film Stars. Table 17-4 Free association textual frequency of occurrence of Implicit themes (Dimensions of Meaning) within participants’ narratives conceptualizing Mothers. Table 17-5 Questionnaire Results when participants had the Film Stars in mind, and coded for Mental Representations (see Appendix 1 for ideal theoretical Mental Representation coding). Table 17-6 Questionnaire Results when participants had their Mothers in mind, and coded for Internal Objects (see Appendix 1 for ideal theoretical Internal Object coding). Table 17-7 Summary of the Results of the Questionnaire (18 questions). Table 18-1 Results of processing the Questionnaire (18 questions). FOREWORD BOB HINSHELWOOD Dr Steggles has accomplished an unusual work. The field of psychoanalysis has forever spawned new ideas, ever since Sigmund Freud, Sandor Ferenczi, and Carl Jung went on their trip together to the New World, and came back less friendly than when they started out. It seems the fate of new ideas is to jostle each other, without making contact; it is the people in possession of the ideas who compete and challenge and in the end part company without much recognition of each other. In this book, ideas clash, not people! The author is to be greatly commended for keeping her research to a strict and relevant format, and she refrains from over-flowing into more personal evaluations. The world of psychoanalysis is pervaded by some Zeitgeist which ensures that those who disagree don't speak. They go their own way cherry-picking their evidence for their own satisfactions. Gill Steggles takes a different line. She has started to show the way by which we might get different ideas to speak to each other. I am in danger of making a rather severe criticism. The world of psychoanalysis may be rather sensitive to criticism, especially from each other, but the work requires people who are maximally sensitive to others – their patients. We should not be too strict if we fail to respond usefully to criticisms of each other. Like no other academic form of psychology,