The term ‘object’ in the depth-psychology corpus carries a remarkably diverse semantic load, ranging from the technical object-relations vocabulary of Klein, Winnicott, and their successors to Jung’s epistemological distinction between subject and object as the fundamental polarity of psychic life. For Klein, the ‘object’—originally the breast—is the first target of the infant’s libidinal and destructive impulses; its splitting into good and bad objects, and the ego’s parallel splitting, constitute the foundational drama of inner life. Winnicott refines this framework decisively: the crucial developmental achievement is not merely relating to an object but using one—a shift that demands the object survive the subject’s destruction and thereby establish its independent, external existence. Jung approaches the subject-object axis epistemologically, treating the unconscious projection of psychic contents onto objects as the primitive condition from which consciousness differentiates itself, with each advance in self-awareness constituting a further withdrawal of projection. Lacan reframes the question through the lens of desire and the Other, where the beloved is simultaneously subject and object of desire, while Kohut’s self-psychology displaces classical object language toward ‘selfobjects’—functions rather than things. Across these traditions, the object marks the boundary between self and world, inner and outer, and the history of its theoretical elaboration is inseparable from depth psychology’s central concerns: projection, introjection, transference, and individuation.
usage cannot be described except in terms of acceptance of the object’s independent existence, its property of having been there all the time
Winnicott distinguishes ‘relating’ from ‘usage,’ arguing that genuine object-usage requires the subject to acknowledge the object’s independent, pre-existing reality rather than treating it as a projection.
, Playing and Reality, 1971thesis
after ‘subject relates to object’ come ‘subject destroys object’ (as it becomes external); and then may come ‘object survives destruction by the subject.’
Following Winnicott, Kalsched traces the developmental sequence in which the object’s survival of fantasy-destruction establishes its external reality and enables genuine love and use.
, The Inner World of Trauma: Archetypal Defences of the Personal Spirit, 1996thesis
the introverted standpoint is one which sets the ego and the subjective psychological process above the object and the objective process, or at any rate seeks to hold its ground against the object
Jung articulates his fundamental typological polarity by defining introversion as the psychic attitude that subordinates the object to subjective process, giving the ego priority over external reality.
, Psychological Types, 1921thesis
the more subjective and emotional this impression is, the more likely it is that the property will be a projection. Yet here we must make a not unimportant distinction: between the quality actually present in the object… and the value, significance, or energy of this quality
Jung distinguishes between real properties of an object and the surplus significance conferred upon it by projection, arguing that the object may provide a ‘hook’ that activates unconscious contents in the subject.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960thesis
Every advance, every conceptual achievement of mankind, has been connected with an advance in self-awareness: man differentiated himself from the object and faced Nature as something distinct from her.
Jung argues that the entire trajectory of human consciousness can be mapped as a progressive differentiation of self from object, withdrawing primitive identity and projection.
, The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, 1960thesis
the ego is incapable of splitting the object—internal and external—without a corresponding splitting taking place within the ego. Therefore the phantasies and feelings about the state of the internal object vitally influence the structure of the ego.
Klein establishes the structural interdependence of ego and internal object: splitting the object necessarily splits the ego, making the internal object’s state constitutive of psychic structure.
, Envy and Gratitude and Other Works 1946-1963, 1957thesis
if the object had an absolute value, it would be an absolute determining factor for the subject and would abolish his freedom of action absolutely… an identity of subject and object which would render all cognition impossible
Jung argues that absolute subordination to the object destroys the conditions for cognition itself; subject-object differentiation is thus the precondition for any conscious mental life.
, Psychological Types, 1921thesis
the babies that have been seen through this phase well are likely to be more aggressive clinically than the ones who have not been seen through the phase well, and for whom aggression is something that cannot be encompassed, or something that can be retained only in the form of a liability to be an object of attack
Winnicott links healthy object-use to the capacity to tolerate aggression, suggesting that failure to negotiate the phase of object destruction leaves the individual passive rather than active.
, Playing and Reality, 1971supporting
Understanding of internal benign and persecutory forces or ‘objects’ and their origin in satisfactory or unsatisfactory instinctual experiences (originally oral and oral sadistic). Importance of projection and introjection as mental mechanisms developed in relation to the child’s experience
Winnicott summarizes Klein’s contribution to object-relations theory, emphasizing that internal objects originate in early instinctual experience and are sustained by the mechanisms of projection and introjection.
, The Maturational Processes and the Facilitating Environment, 1965supporting
it will always be around the notion of the subject and the object that he will comment on this analytic theme: we take the other as a subject and not at all purely and simply as our object
Lacan interrogates the subject-object binary in the analytic context of love and oblativity, insisting that ethical analytic discourse requires treating the other as subject rather than as mere object of pleasure.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015supporting
what function there can be occupied in this rightly elective, privileged relationship that the love relationship is by the fact that this subject with whom among all others we have this bond of love…. the way precisely this question has a relationship with the fact that he is the object of our desire
Lacan probes the paradox that the beloved is simultaneously a desiring subject and the object of desire, a tension he regards as constitutive of the love relationship.
, The Seminar of Jacques Lacan, Book VIII: Transference, 2015supporting
This is a typical example of what I am calling a transitional object. When Y was a little boy it was always certain that if anyone gave him his ‘Baa’ he would immediately suck it and lose anxiety
Winnicott introduces the transitional object through clinical vignette, showing how a specific material object functions to soothe anxiety by bridging the subjective and objective worlds.
, Playing and Reality, 1971supporting
Empathy presupposes a subjective attitude of confidence, or trustfulness towards the object. It is a readiness to meet the object halfway, a subjective assimilation that brings about a good understanding between subject and object
Jung analyzes empathy as a particular mode of subject-object relation involving subjective projection that may obscure real object-qualities even while producing apparent understanding.
, Psychological Types, 1921supporting
As with people, you may discover the soul of an object through your relationship with it. You find out if it has any depth and if you can work up some real feeling for it.
Moore extends the concept of soul to material objects, arguing that depth emerges through relational engagement rather than being intrinsic, thereby investing the everyday object with psychological significance.
, Care of the Soul Twenty-fifth Anniversary Edition: A Guide, 1992supporting
everything unconscious is projected. Hence, when we can apprehend the unconscious as such, we strip away the false appearance from objects, and this can only promote truth
Jung articulates his theory that unconscious contents inevitably appear as attributes of external objects, and that withdrawing projections by making the unconscious conscious restores objective reality.
, Psychological Types, 1921supporting
Since these new objects of admiration are more dependable and far more empathic than their previous drinking or drug-using friends and earlier parental figures, alcoholics and addicts are more willing to risk relying on another human being.
Flores applies object-relations and self-psychology frameworks to addiction treatment, arguing that recovery involves transferring reliance from addictive substances to new, empathic human objects.
, Addiction as an Attachment Disorder, 2004supporting
Less distortion occurs in interactions with others since the internalized object- and self-representations are integrated
Flores links psychological health to the integration of internalized object-representations, arguing that distorted object relations are the substrate of addictive and character pathology.
, Group Psychotherapy with Addicted Populations An, 1997supporting
samāpatti is, more specifically, the complete identification of the mind with the object of meditation
Bryant defines samāpatti as total mental absorption in a meditation object, offering a cross-cultural parallel to depth-psychological accounts of subject-object merger in contemplative states.
, The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali: A New Edition, Translation, and Commentary, 2009aside
when objective consciousness melts in your subjective consciousness, [then] that subjective consciousness with the mixture of objective consciousness… enters in that Universal consciousness
Singh’s commentary on the Vijñāna Bhairava describes a contemplative dissolution of the subject-object boundary into universal awareness, offering a non-Western framework for thinking about object-consciousness.
, Vijnana Bhairava: The Manual for Self-Realization, 1979aside
reality is that which is disclosed to us as real, whether in everyday perception or scientific investigation, and such disclosure is an achievement of consciousness
Thompson articulates a phenomenological position in which reality as object is constituted through intentional acts of consciousness rather than given independently of the subject.
, Mind in Life: Biology, Phenomenology, and the Sciences of Mind, 2007aside