Ellen Foster Object Relations Essay

Ellen Foster is a tenner-year-old, Caucasian, female who experiences a series of traumatic events during her babyhood. These traumatic events include her witnessing interior(prenominal) violence in the home, her mformer(a)s suicide and subsequent physical, sexual and psychological abuse by her alcoholic founder, her maternal grand set out and other relatives (aunts and cousins on the mothers side). Ellen shuttled from home to home, staying for a lilliputian time at the home of her teacher, and accordingly to incompatible relatives homes, to fin totally(prenominal)y a shelter home where she live on resides.Ellens new mum, as she refers to her, is a much better role model then she has ever experienced before. New Mama is adjunct and nurturing towards Ellen. Ellen reports that g everyplacen manpowert and church funding support the foster family. She has no siblings. Ellen is intelligent and enjoys doing art. She very much disengagees a trot at her new foster home. Ell en misses her mother, and longed for a phencyclidine hydrochloride before she had new florists chrysanthemum. This is evident when she reports eaves dropping on a colored family and started devising a hear of all that a family should wee.Of course, there is the mama and the papa but if nonpareil has to be missing then it is OK if the one left nominate move c be for two. But non just anybody apprise cypher or more than his or her egotism (p. 67). She ofttimes sought-after(a) help from her Aunt Betsey and neighbors. Her mother, scram and grandmother, or mamas mama as Ellen calls her, atomic number 18 all deceased. The grandmother was old and opprobrious towards Ellen forcing her to work the handle with the colored field hands on her farms in the plaza of a sweltering hot summertime until school started.Ellen ultimately becomes the cargongiver and providemaid to mamas mama after the grandmother fires all of her household servants. Despite Ellens c atomic number 18 an d sizable works for her, the grandmother despises her because she is convinced that Ellen was in cahoots with her father in ab exploitation her daughter, taking her revenge out on Ellen since the father is dead. Ellen has a best friend, an Afri loafer Ameri faecal matter little girl lay downd Starletta, Since Ellen likes Starletta, and she struggles with her own burgeoning racism. She has beliefs astir(predicate) African Americans that are mainly negative.Ellen eventually realizes that race makes no deviation in the quality of the person. Ellen enjoys art and playing with her microscope a good deal fantasying about being a scientist on the edge of a new discovery that will transmit mankind. She sees a counselor at school on Wednes daytimes. Ellen does not enjoy doing therapy and has negative transference towards her counselor. forthwith she is seeing me for therapy. She can be aggressive, defensive and warlike at times at school. During one school term Ellen reported that her counselor asked her about her last name because Foster isnt her real last name.She did not want to discuss it any further. Perhaps she chose the last name Foster from her label as a foster child. Object Relations As verbalise by Lesser and Pope (2011) according to purpose dealing guess, homo development takes place within the context of races (p. 69). British prey relation theorists, Melanie Klein, Ronald Fairbairn, and devastate Guntrip introduce definite and functional ideas about what familiar(a) quarryive lens founding, or the inner homo, consists of. The inner human beings includes re collapseations of self-importance-importance and other, representations structured by legal opinions, recollections, and occurrences within the impertinent orbit.A representation has a lasting law of continuation in the inner world and although it begins as a cognitive structure, it eventually takes on a hard emotional meaning for the person (Berzoff, Melano-Flanagan, & Hertz 1996). The phrase object is set a role from the subject. The subject is the self and the object is the touch off outside the self, the object is what the self identifies with, encounters, wants, has uncertainties about, feels denial about, or absorbs. In Freudian hinge upon theory and in ego psychology, the term object is almosttimes used in reference to people.The word, object, in drive theory can be to some extent depersonalized, because the word essentially does exemplify a thing not a person as in the object of oral impulse can literally be the breast(citation). In psychodynamic theory the word object, usually refers to people, but other objects much(prenominal) as cooking, art, pets, or can become objects when they are profoundly and representatively connected to powerful object experiences in the inner world. Some of Ellens physical objects are her microscope, her encyclopedias, her coin, and her art supply.A conjecture about Ellens inner world and what these objec t represent is that her money could represent an insurance plan, in case things go wrong. And her microscope, her art, and her encyclopedias represent an escape for her and they also represent hopes for the forthcoming. Klein (1948) was the premier theorist to revise Freuds notion of the object by giving more consideration to the interpersonal contendings in deciding its influence in developing personality. She amongst other object transaction theorists presently defined the target of relational of necessity as a notion k presentlyn as kinship seeking.Klee 2005 stated that blood seeking is the belief that by dint of kins with significant people in our lives, we take in parts of others (objects) and gradually develop a self-structure that we eventually call a personality . This mental service by which a person changes the regulatory features of her environment into internal regulations and features is called internalizing (Lesser & Pope 2011). D. W. Winnicot (1958), a pe diatrician and psychoanalyst, is p bearigious in the field of object relations theory, gave bang-up consideration to the notion of being alone.He believes that the aptitude to abide, take pleasure in, and utilize healthy seclusion could be refined, ironically, only in the proximity of another(prenominal). If aloneness is experienced as desolate, isolated, or miserable, it becomes agonizing. This can supervene is a child has been neglected. In this situation, the inner world is not filled with enough soothing figures. On the contrary, aloneness becomes too excruciating or unacceptable for the child, if the inner world is too crowed with expectant and inglorious figures who offer neither protection, reassurance, nor tranquility.The ideal environment for the suppuration child to share experiences with the soothing figure for a period of time and to experience time alone to reflect and to adventure on the childs own (Berzoff et al. 1996). Klein (1948) described six early proce sses and uninitiate defenses developed from early babe years. Projection is when the babe believes an object has characteristics that are in fact the infants own feelings. Introjection is the mental liking in which the infant consumes the perceived in the world.Projective identification is creatively disconnectedting off a part of oneself and ascribing it to another in order to reign over the other (Berzoff et al. 1996). separate occurs when a child cannot separate conflicting thoughts or feelings in the mind at the selfsame(prenominal) time, and thus instead of integrating the two thoughts or feelings the child focuses on just one of them. A secernate can take any form, from visual behavior to concepts and ideas. For example, a frequent split is into unassailable and bad.The good part is preserved and cherished at the same time the bad part is wrestled with or repressed. In extreme case of schizophrenia, when a part of the self linked with one of the separate thoughts, and another part of the self is linked with another, the person is then split (Berzoff et al. 1996). Idealization is a defense used to agree painful and unacceptable feelings out of consciousness. The feelings that are hard are usually the same feelings that people ofttimes want to resist anger, disappointment, envy, sadness, desire, and greed (p. 145).Devaluation is the opposite of glorification and is a defense mechanism used to reject troublesome feelings such as neediness, weakness, insecurity, envy, or desire (p. 146). A person who denies desire by dint of devaluation ends up feeling smug and superior but sort of alone (Berzoff et al. 1996). An important developmental point in object relations is the depressive slope according to Klein (1948). The depressive military posture is constantly maturing throughout a persons purporttime. Feelings of remorse, grief, and the yearning for atonement take hold in the developing mind in the depressive position.The person now recog nizes the ability to cause harm or displace away a person who one undecidedly loves. The defenses attributed to the depressive position include the frenetic defenses, such as preoccupancy for reparation. As the depressive position causes growing integration in the ego, prior defenses shift in the character, becoming slight powerful, allowing the character to move into psychic reality (Berzoff et al. 1996). end-to-end this turbulent time in Ellens life she is experiencing many an(prenominal) new relationships and is relationship seeking with many adults. These adults are supposed to be caregivers for her.These people are her mother, father, her grandmother, Julia, Aunt Betsy, Aunt Nadine, and new mama. There is a time after Ellens mother dies that I feel she is too alone, in agreement with Winnicot (1958). Ellen often reports that when she would come home from school it was already unknown and he had the lights on. I went in and did not announce to him. I did not speak to him or else I stayed outside most of the time (p. 24). She said that her father was drunk all the time, often passed out, she was alone and eventually she had to take care of the bills.There are other times when Ellens life is overflowing with abusive adult figures in her life. On New eld Eve, Ellen claimed that a bunch of black drunk men came into her house with father. My daddy betokened up at my house less and lesshe did show up on New Years Eve. Of course I went and hid when I heard him and a whole drove of colored men come in the adit (p. 36). Ellen is frightened when this happens often trying to escape through a window in her room. In pact with Winnicot (1958), aloneness becomes too much too stark(a) for Ellen and she feels the need to hide.Her inner world is too crowed with threatening and abusive figures who are threatening her safety. The whole mothers side of the family overcrowds Ellens inner world too. This is a risk for Ellen, because disruptions in object relations may result in an inability to total in love, emotional coldness, apathy or withdrawal method from interaction with others, co-dependency, and/or extreme need to control relationships (Berzoff et al. 199670). Ellen attempts to control Starletta as much as she can through projective identification she splits off a part of herself and attempts to control Starletta.Ellen often tells Starletta what to do, for example one day when Ellen was over Starlettas house and she wanted to play, provided Ellen thought to herself and told Starletta the following Starletta still had on her nightie and she needed to be washed. You got to wash before I will play with you is what I told her (p. 31). She taped Starlettas crayons back together after she broke them. She would often talk down to Starletta Tell your Mama I thank her I said to her. Say it over in your head and out loud so it will not leave your head (p. 52).This relationship may unconsciously aim to get rid of unmanageable feelings for El len and help her deal with these feelings. Ellens relationship with grandmother is toxic at best. In the beginning, Ellen thought that her grandmother might like having a girl around the house, even though she is not a vision(pg), but Ellen said she had good intentions. In my opinion, good intentions meant she wanted to have a relationship with her grandmother. The grandmother wanted to punish Ellen for Ellen and her father do her daughters suicide. Ellen confronts her grandmother, asking her why she hates her so much.Ellen asked her grandmother Well I know you detested my daddy but what about me? Why cant you see that I am not like him? (p. 78). The grandma lashes out at Ellen with an intrusion of abusive hurtful words directed towards Ellen to break apart her down. Ultimately, that is what Ellen does she shuts down. So I decided to spend the rest of my life making up for it. whatsoever it was. Whatever I decided I one day I actually did (p. 78-79). Ellen is in the depressive position, she feels criminal about everything for her mothers death, for her fathers death, and then for the grandmothers death when she passes.Ellen utilizes her manic defenses, in my opinion, when she finds the grandmother dead and decides to dress her in her Sundays best clothes and surround her with f begins in order to make amends with her guilty feelings. I made her like a present to Jesus so maybe he would take her. Take this one I got prettied up and tell it down by name to balance against the one I held from you before. be sure I get the credit for it and if you can please show me some way that you and me are even now (p. 92). Ellen becomes slightly preoccupied with reparation.Ellen begins to move past this word form when she moves in the home of her Aunt Nadine. Object relations can be applied to Ellens traumatic past and helps to identify some significant points in her life that she would like to work in future treatment. A pleasant thing about object relations is that as the therapist and diligent conjointly examine the patients internal world and its effect on the patients relationships, the patient and therapist are in a relationship as well. In this way, patient and therapist have an existing shared out connection that both can study and learn from (Berzoff et al. 996). sociocultural Theory Sociocultural theory stemmed from the work of psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky (1934/1986) matte up that human cognition was innately social and language based. Vygotsky believed inner speech is qualitatively distinct from normal external speech. It is language, advanced during the earlier years, and progressively improved during the middle years (where Ellens age lies) that actually acquired immune deficiency syndrome in giving the older child the strength to organize things mentally rather than by using concrete items (Lesser & Pope 2011).As Berk 2003 stated Vytgotsky felt that children speak to themselves for self-guidance he felt language was th e bum for all high cognitive processes, including control attention, think memorization and recall, categorization, planning, problem solving, abstract reasoning, and self-reflection (p. 257). One of Vygotskys concepts is the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The ZPD is the difference between what a child can fulfil when work by themselves and what the same child can achieve when given assistance from someone with the obligatory experience (Wertsch 1985).Vygotsky viewed the ZPD as a way to better beg off the relation between childrens learning and cognitive development. The lower limit of ZPD is the level of accomplishment reach by the child working alone this lower limit can also be authentic to as the childs actual developmental level. The upper limit is the level of latent skill that the child is able to reach with the assistance of a more capable instructor (Wertsch 1985).. A concept associated with ZPD is the concept scaffolding.It is essential to make a whole step that Vygotksy never used this concept in his committal to writing introduced by David Wood, Jerome S. Bruner, and Gail Ross (1976). Scaffolding is a process through which a mentor or more fit peer helps a person in his or her ZPD learn for as long as necessary and tapers off until the student no longer needs the mentor, much like a scaffold is quarantined from a building when construction is finished or deemed stable (Wood et al. 1976).Vygotsky viewed make-believe play as the full of life context for development of self-regulation. Despite the fact that Ellen is ten years old going on cardinal years old, this still pertains to her. Make-believe is full of shared dialogue and development-enhancing skills. Vygotsky takes make-believe to the next level making it a important part of development a distinguishing, experiential ZPD in which children try out a wide range of difficult skills and learn culturally valued skills developing a significantly stronger might for self-regulati on