My poor wife. If I utter the phrase “object relations” to her one more time, she may combust. I don’t want that. The same revulsion applies, per her indications, to any mention of Bion, Winnicott, and Klein, the object-relations pioneers. She doesn’t want to hear any more about them, their emphasis on the maternal holding environment, and their goals of integration. I don’t blame her either; in the two weeks since I began reviewing this psychoanalytic school of thought, I’ve found myself continually down the rabbit hole of self and object. Each of these forays have borne an understanding, and as I continue down my path after medicine, understanding is what I need most in order to get where I want to go.
That’s why I’m writing about object relations today; because I want to go deeper into the hole and understand how my relationship with medicine became so tortuous. Additionally, for my marriage, I need another outlet to discuss my object-relation findings.
So, with my headlamp cinched tight and its light flickered on, let’s dive into the Kleinian underworld.
I was born into a family where I sensed my purpose was to safeguard our family’s okayness. This was sensical, given my great-grandfather was killed by a drunk driver a month before my birth. As I was born, my family mourned. To everything they needed, I received.
Not that I ever sensed their mourning though. All I felt was love and attention. My presence and happiness seemed vitally necessary. If I detected anything aside from their love, I sensed limited space for negative emotions—frustration, anger, sadness—but that was fine because what did I have to be frustrated, angry, or sad about? I had a wonderful childhood. I was loved, and I loved loving them.
Though, as alluded to previously, my mid-twenties intention to forego medical school and move to the mountains was met with heavy familial resistance. I should be a physician, they believed, and they insinuated that I wasn’t destined to be a teacher or a bike mechanic, that I was capable of much more with my life. My impact needed to be greater. I needed to help people. But what if I wanted to just live in the mountains and teach?
Regardless, I went to medical school, graduated top of class, and landed a residency slot in Southern California. Throughout, until my last day in medicine, I thought I could find a way to be myself while sacrificing myself for others’ okayness. I really believed I was omnipotent. And subsequently, I learned the cost of co-dependency in the direct experience of frustration, anger, and sadness as I lost who I was. Inevitably, I had to live those emotions. They were the price of earning the ability to choose myself.
Now, you might be asking, “Which objects received the ire of these emotions?” Two objects that eventually merged into one: family and medicine. And of course, I blamed myself too.
Object relations posits that each of us has a self that is surrounded by objects that meet our needs. From birth, the self interacts with these objects, developing a pattern of interactions. The initial objects are mother and father, but over time anything of attachment becomes an object; home, city, football, clothing, political affiliation, etc. Over time, these object interactions become charged with emotion, some of which are good feelings and others are bad. In understanding a patient’s object relations, the therapist supports the patient in accepting the good and bad elements of their object relations, so that the patient may live with integrated and whole relationships, not just relationships split into the good and bad need gratifications. After all, our objects have needs too.
After our two weeks of discussion, this is how my wife would describe object relations. I’m only kidding… slightly. She would probably be clearer than I.
Here, I could go deeper. I could analyze the paranoid position I held throughout medical school and residency, built to preserve the good of my family while villainizing medicine, or what happened when that paranoid position inversed. I could talk about how my own therapy helped me integrate my object relations. I could discuss how my family came to own our specific way of relating objects. All subjects of interest for me, yes, but for today, I will jump ahead to what’s most valuable for us.
When I went to medical school for my family, those two objects morphed into one. Where I saw medicine, I felt my parents. Where I saw my parents, I felt medicine.
In leaving medicine (and in an object-relations sense, leaving my family), the hardest step was relinquishment. For eight years, I thought I was omnipotent; the day I realized I didn’t possess the power to simultaneously be a doctor and live an authentically joyful life, was the day I stepped toward the light of integration.
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In the 500 or so days since I surrendered my omnipotence, my relations are markedly healthier. Toward medicine, I don’t hate it anymore. Sure, there were tough days, but man, there were beautiful days too. To get to where I stand now, I’d gratefully do it all over again. Toward my family, we’re not perfect nor are we living inside an ever-lasting happiness, but I don’t resent them anymore. Everything that happened needed to happen. Today, I’m grateful for a truer understanding of one another, a love more transparent.
Toward myself, the victim of the harshest hates and resentments, I relate with more grace and understanding. I needed everything that happened. I needed to become a psychiatrist. It was in my life’s curriculum. Accepting this reality has been beyond nourishing.
Next, all I can do is my best and keep trusting in being myself, accepting my good and bad parts, including the inevitable return of my omnipotence streak, and keep on walking down the path to integration, aided with every trip down the rabbit hole.
If you too are walking down the path of integration, I’d love to connect and hear your story. Feel free to reach out via my Contact page.
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