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Ronald Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition” 15-Event-Review_OPUS_7_1.qxp copy.qxp 01/06/2015 10:11 Page 180 EVENT REVIEW Presentations, Thoughts, and Reflections on the International Conference “Ronald Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition” Xing Xiaochun Abstract To celebrate the publication of Ronald Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition, cross-continental contributors gathered at the international conference held at the Anna Freud Centre, London. The presentations of such contributors as Norka Malberg, Viviane Green, David and Jill Scharff, Anne Alvarez, Valerie Sinason, and Rubén M. Basili are extracted and introduced to a Chinese audi- ence in order to better understand the legacy of Fairbairn and the current debates on the development of object relations theory, as well as how his conceptions can shed light on contemporary clinical work. Furthermore, the author’s own reflections on Fairbairn’s ideas and their acceptance in China are followed by a clinical vignette interpreted through the insight derived from the conference. Key words: Fairbairn, object relations, conference, reflections. OVERVIEW OF THE CONFERENCE Ronald Fairbairn was the father of object relations theory, who first pro- posed that the infant’s need to seek objects was central to develop- ment. The newly published book, Ronald Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition (Clarke & Scharff, 2014), one of the series of “Lines of Development: Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades”, pub- lished by Karnac, formed the focus of the international conference “Ronald Fairbairn and the Object Relations Tradition”. The conference was held in the Anna Freud Centre in London, 7–9 March 2014. The conference was co-sponsored by the Freud Museum, London, the International Psychotherapy Institute, and Essex University. During this fruitful weekend, dozens of contributors—psychoanalysts and other clinicians from the UK, Europe, Latin and North America, Australia and other parts of the world—gathered together to review the legacy of Fairbairn and to share its extension, further development, and practical application in clinical work in particular and in society in general. Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy in China, Volume 1, 2015: pp. 180–186. 15-Event-Review_OPUS_7_1.qxp copy.qxp 01/06/2015 10:11 Page 181 EVENT REVIEW 181 The presentations and discussions covered such areas as theory, history, clinical practice, and the broader application of Fairbairn’s ideas in the fields of religion, philosophy, art, politics, and social issues. PRESENTATIONS, WITH SHARING OF CLINICAL EXPERIENCE From Friday night to Sunday afternoon, nearly two dozen contributors shared their ideas on the legacy of Fairbairn and the evolution of object relations theory along with interesting clinical cases, discussions, and debates. Here, I summarise several of the presentations which I attended. Some of the contributors are also involved in psychotherapy training in China, such as Viviane Green, and David and Jill Scharff. Norka Malberg: On being recognized Dr Norka Malberg trained at the Anna Freud Centre and is Associate Clinical Professor at the Yale Child Study Center and President of Section II of Division 39, American Psychological Association. She is also co-editor of the book The Anna Freud Tradition (Malberg & Rafael-Leff, 2012), in the same series of “Lines of Development: Evolution of Theory and Practice over the Decades”. Dr Malberg illustrated how Fairbairn’s theories inform clinical work through her presentation of the case of Jeremy, a twelve-year-old boy adopted by lesbian parents. Jeremy had a history of early trauma prior to his adoption, in the form of abuse and neglect. He attended a special school for children with emotional disturbances. At eight years old, he would still leave faeces on his leg after going to the bathroom. He began four times a week psychoanalytic treatment with Dr Malberg when he was ten. Jeremy’s behaviour in the consulting room, such as hiding under the table or in the cupboard and crawling like a baby, was understood as a desperate attempt to repair his early experience of neglect. Such regression can allow a sort of psychological rebirth. He projected familiar exciting and rejecting objects on to the therapist. The therapist used her internal experience to further understand the libidinal and anti-libidinal objects that Jeremy remained attached to. By exploring Jeremy’s fantasies and her own countertransference, Dr Malberg was able to recognise Jeremy’s rela- tional needs, resulting in psychological progress and some integration. Jeremy was better able to recognise his therapist as a real person, beyond being only the container of his projections. Viviane Green: Internal objects: fantasy, experience, and history intersecting? Dr Viviane Green is an adult and child and adolescent psychoanalytic psy- chotherapist in London, and a lecturer. She conducts training programmes 15-Event-Review_OPUS_7_1.qxp copy.qxp 01/06/2015 10:11 Page 182 182 EVENT REVIEW in Beijing, China on mentalization in children and adolescents. Her paper integrated perspectives from attachment theory, mentalization, intersub- jectivity, and neuroscience as a developmental perspective for the analytic exploration of internal objects and their relationships to fantasy, history, and experience. By describing a seven-year-old child’s fantasy of dolphin babies living inside a prince’s head, expressing both an oedipal scenario and the experience of the child’s brain dysfunction, which was a kind of trauma, Dr Green illustrated a developmental view on different ways of internalising objects. Biology and fantasy contributed to the child’s devel- opment and related unconscious meanings. David Scharff: Internal objects and external experience Chair of the Board of the International Psychotherapy Institute based at Washington, DC, Dr David Scharff also co-edited several books on Fairbairn, including: From Instinct to Self: Selected Writings of W. R.D. Fairbairn (Scharff & Birtles, 1995) and co-edited the book which formed the basis of this conference (Clarke & Scharff, 2014). He and his wife, Dr Jill Scharff, have been extensively involved in psychotherapy training in China. Dr Scharff elaborated the central idea of Fairbairn’s model of the self. During development, the child’s experience of the outside world organises his or her internal world. Dr Scharff discussed the context within which Fairbairn developed his ideas—how Fairbairn expanded Freud’s discovery of internalisation of objects. It is not the drives per se but the drives within relationships that organise development. Dr Scharff illustrated through diagrams Fairbairn’s theory of the breakdown of the self, explicating the resultant parts of the self. Dr Scharff developed his own addition to Fairbairn’s original diagram, which stimulated much interest and debate. He explained, by using this diagram, how, for some patients, love is impos- sible. For these persons, the possibility of love and being loved is under attack internally due to the dynamic of the anti-libidinal object (internal saboteur) attacking the exciting object. In general, Fairbairn’s concept of self is a dynamic, open system, formed through the relationship between the self and its objects, influenced by the external world and influencing recipro- cally the nature of external relationships. Attachment theory, neuroscience, and Bion’s concept of containment also contribute to understanding the reciprocal shaping between the internal objects and external experience. Jill Scharff: Fairbairn’s clinical theory Dr Jill Scharff is the Co-founder of International Psychotherapy Institute and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Georgetown University, as well as the co-editor (with David Scharff) of the book The Legacy of Fairbairn and 15-Event-Review_OPUS_7_1.qxp copy.qxp 01/06/2015 10:11 Page 183 EVENT REVIEW 183 Sutherland: Therapeutic Application (Scharff & Scharff, 2005). She and Dr David Scharff conduct training programmes on couple therapy based on object relations theory in Beijing, China. Dr Jill Scharff described the influence of Fairbairn’s theory and the in- fluence of the person of Fairbairn on her learning and current practice of individual, couple, and group psychotherapy. Speaking, as it were, to different parts of the self, psychotherapy can help people with the capacity to interact with the outer world and learn from experience. Dr Jill Scharff used clinical examples to elaborate Fairbairn’s notion of the “internal sabo- teur”, which persecutes the libidinal ego. The internal saboteur is a kind of representation of self-destructive actions, attacking the need for pleasure, satisfaction, self-confidence, and the capacity for love. The internal sabo- teur may also attack external objects. This was illustrated in a clinical case from a couple’s therapy. Mora, a forty-two-year-old woman, suffered from depression and fragility. She imagined her husband’s penis as a knife and she dissociated and blacked out during sexual intercourse. Her father had been violent and abusive and her mother acted as an exciting and rejecting object. Eric, her husband, had a mother who had been raped as a teenager. She gave Eric, who was the result of that rape, up for adoption. As a result, he found a traumatised woman, Mora, to attend to and love. The couple came to therapy with the images and expectations that Eric was to care for a mother and Mora needed a man unlike her father. After several months of couple therapy, they were able to better enjoy their sexual life. However, when approaching termination,
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