Psychology Proposed by the Austrian psychologist M Klein (1882–1960), and developed from the ideas of the Austrian founder of psychoanalysis Sigmund Freud (1856–1939).
This theory deals with the interaction between an object and a subject. Freud viewed early development of humans as occurring primarily through the satisfaction and inhibition of instinctual drives. Hence, he saw interactions occurring simply in order to satisfy these drives. However, object relations theory sees interaction as the goal of maturation and a way in which the development of the self occurs in relation to the corresponding ability to differentiate between self and object.
M Klein, The Psychoanalysis of Children (London, 1932)
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