A New Reading of the Origins of Object-Relations Theory

 The author presents a reading of Freud’s *”Mourning and Melancholia”* in which he examines not only the ideas Freud was introducing, but, as important, the way he was thinking and writing in this watershed paper. The author demonstrates how Freud made use of his exploration of the unconscious work of mourning and melancholia to propose and explore some of the major tenets of a revised model of the mind (which later would be termed *object-relations theory*). The principal tenets of the revised model presented in this 1917 paper include: (1) the idea that the unconscious is organized to a significant degree around stable internal object relations between paired split-off parts of the ego; (2) the notion that psychic pain may be defended against by replacing an external object relationship with an unconscious, fantasied internal object relationship; (3) the idea that pathological bonds of love mixed with hate are among the strongest ties binding internal objects to one another in a state of mutual captivity; (4) the notion that the psychopathology of internal object relations often involves omnipotent thinking that cuts off dialogue between the unconscious internal object world and the world of actual experience with real external objects; and (5) the idea that ambivalence in relations between unconscious internal objects involves not only the conflict of love and hate, but also the conflict between the wish to continue to be alive in one’s object relationships and the wish to be at one with one’s dead internal objects.