SELF OBJECTS AND DEVELOPMENT - EARLY-CHIL DHOOD STATES OF MIND IN AN ADOLESCENT

In the context of Fordham's model of the deintegrating-reintegrating s elf, the paper discusses the total quality of the baby's earliest dein tegrations and the nature of what Fordham terms the self object. This is illustrated by a brief baby observation. The paper shows how residu es of the self object permeated a rule-making defensive structure in a 14-year-old girl and how the therapy provided an opportunity for elem ents that had been locked, as potentials, in a <<bump car>> self objec t, to unfold and develop. These elements included getting in touch wit h an infant, vulnerable part of her personality and modifying a habitu al defence which was to take refuge in projective identification with an aggressive, omnipotent phantasied brother. Another important elemen t unfolded through the separation of herself from the idealised, prece pt-daughter in her mother's mind, so that an archetypal absoluteness a rising from the self object became modified in the therapeutic relatio nship.