Abstract
Recent advances in the neuroscience of episodic memory provide a framework to integrate object relations theory, a psychoanalytic model of mind development, with potential neural mechanisms. Object relations are primordial cognitive-affective units of the mind derived from survival- and safety-level experiences with caretakers during phase-sensitive periods of infancy and toddlerhood. Because these are learning experiences, their neural substrate likely involves memory, here affect-enhanced episodic memory. Inaugural object relations are encoded by the hippocampus-amygdala synaptic plasticity, and systems-consolidated by medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC). Self- and object-mental representations, extracted from these early experiences, are at first dichotomized by contradictory affects evoked by frustrating and rewarding interactions (“partial object relations”). Such affective dichotomization appears to be genetically hardwired the amygdala. Intrinsic propensity of mPFC to form schematic frameworks for episodic memories may pilot non-conscious integration of dichotomized mental representations in neonates and infants. With the emergence of working memory in toddlers, an activated self- and object-representation of a particular valence can be juxtaposed with its memorized opposites creating a balanced cognitive-affective frame (conscious “integration of object relations”). Specific events of object relations are forgotten but nevertheless profoundly influence the mental future of the individual, acting (i) as implicit schema-affect templates that regulate attentional priorities, relevance, and preferential assimilation of new information based on past experience, and (ii) as basic units of experience that are, under normal circumstances, integrated as attractors or “focal points” for interactive self-organization of functional brain networks that underlie the mind. A failure to achieve integrated object relations is predictive of poor adult emotional and social outcomes, including personality disorder. Cognitive, cellular-, and systems-neuroscience of episodic memory appear to support key postulates of object relations theory and help elucidate neural mechanisms of psychodynamic psychotherapy. Derived through the dual prism of psychoanalysis and neuroscience, the gained insights may offer new directions to enhance mental health and improve treatment of multiple forms of psychopathology.
Highlights
The sole empirical support for object relations theory, a psychoanalytic metapsychology about the development of the human mind, was the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy, derived from this theory, in the treatment of pathological object relations in personality disorder
Our main hypotheses are that (i) cellular- and systems-neuroscience provide insights that may help integrate object relations theory and neural mechanisms of systems-consolidation and semanticization of affect-enhanced episodic memories derived from early interactive experiences with caretakers, and (ii) cognitive neuroscience provides insights that may explain the emergence of the sense of self from engramized autobiographical memories
We draw from the higher order theory of emotional consciousness (HOTEC) (LeDoux and Brown, 2017) to account for mental differentiation between one’s own self and the object world, a major milestone in mind development
Summary
The sole empirical support for object relations theory, a psychoanalytic metapsychology about the development of the human mind, was the effectiveness of psychodynamic psychotherapy, derived from this theory, in the treatment of pathological object relations in personality disorder. Intrinsic Propensity for Schema Learning and Rudimentary Working Memory Are Plausible Mechanisms of Integrated Object Relations In the context of good-enough parenting and/or heritably tempered affect reactivity, integration of affectively dichotomized self- and object- representations results in each having a predominantly positive valence, which tends to remain stable despite occasional frustrations Such “self-constancy” (Mahler et al, 1975) and “object-constancy” (Hartmann, 1952) evolve in tandem from about 6 months to 2-3 years-of-age through co-determined processes (Auchincloss and Samberg, 2012). Cognitive integration of dichotomies may involve attention-mediated modifications of synaptic-weights and/or oscillatory phase-locking that modify functional connectiviy Both may influence the neural input to working memory representing affectively opposite valences across interactive episodes. Negative experiences may be discriminated against as early as at the level of hippocampus-amygdala processing (Sun et al, 2020), and may lead to increased certainty of assignments about hidden state of the environment (Sanders et al, 2020), expected to be positive
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