Bizarre object

Bizarre object in object relations theory is the name given to external objects which, by way of projective identification, are imbued with characteristics of the subject's own personality.

Bion's formulations

W. R. Bion saw psychotic attacks on the normal linking between objects as producing a fractured world, where the patient felt themselves surrounded by hostile bizarre objects—the by-products of the broken linkages.[1] Such objects, with their superego components,[2] blur the boundary of internal and external, and impose a kind of externalised moralism on their victims.[3] They can also contain ego-functions that have been evacuated from the self as part of the defence against thinking, sensing, and coming to terms with reality: thus a man may feel watched by his telephone,[4] or that the music player being listened to is in fact listening to him in turn.[5]

Later developments

Hanna Segal considered bizarre objects more difficult to re-internalise than either good or bad objects due to their splintered state: grouped together in a mass or psychic gang, their threatening properties may contribute to agoraphobia.[6]

See also

References

  1. ↑ The legacy of Wifrid Bion
  2. ↑ J. Abram, The Language of Winnicott (2007) p. 88-9
  3. ↑ Robert Caper, A Mind of One's Own (2005) p. 7 and p. 139
  4. ↑ N. Symington, Narcissism (1993) p. 110
  5. ↑ R. Anderson ed., Clinical Lectures on Klein and Bion (1992) p. 93
  6. ↑ H. Segal, Dream, Phantasy and Art (2006) p. 38
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