Object Relations: Theory and Practice
School of Professional Psychology and Health CMHW 6015 3.00
In this course students will learn how to identify and treat patients with advanced and complex psychological needs, in particular patients encountered in Community Mental Health Clinics (patients of the Borderline & Psychotic organization). Students will gain deeper understanding of the basic human psyche, how it is organized, and how change to that structure can occur. This course will cover the concepts of Internal Objects, Splitting, Projective Identification, Paranoid-Schizoid, Depressive and Autistic-Contiguous Positions, Holding, Containment, Learning from Experience, Transitional Objects, Playing, Alpha Functioning, Beta Bits, and the use of transference and counter-transference in the treatment of psychological disorders. The primary works of Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, Wilfred Bion and Thomas Ogden, along with a few others, will be the emphasis of this course. CMHW student