Harry Guntry's Study Of The Object Relationship Thought

Harry Guntrip (1901-1975) is one of the important representatives of psychoanalytic object relations school. He has made a significant contribution in promoting the psychoanalytic theory and clinical technologies. In terms of theory, Guntrip follows Fairbairn's personality structure model, on this basis he adds some supplements about the endopsychic structure. He proposes the three levels of ego-splitting, namely, first, that between the central ego in touch with the outer world and a withdrawn ego in the inner world, and, second, the further splitting of this withdrawn ego into a libidinal ego and an antilibidinal ego, and, third, the libidinal ego itself divides into an active sado-masochistic oral ego and a passive regressed ego. He brings in the concept of regressed ego as the ultimate product of the ego-splitting and elaborate it in detail. Be faced with the problem of ego-development, Guntrip insists ego-relatedness is the substance of the start of ego-development. The one who has shape ego-relatedness can achieve a strong ego while the one who hasn't shape ego-relatedness will fall into ego-weakness. In terms of developmental psychology, Guntrip proposes the basic forms of human relationship, it contains eight phases and fourteen patterns. These forms present how a baby grow from infantile dependence phase to mature dependence phase. In terms of clinical practice, Guntrip insists schizoid problem is the basis of all the mental illness. He values the schizoid phenomenon very much and thinks highly of the psychotherapeutic relationship and presents some original viewpoints about the resistance problems. Guntrip promote the development of psychoanalytic theory and practice, but there are also some limits in his work, including the definition of the concept is not clear enough, the theory absence of systematicness and underestimating the instinct-theory.