Fairbairn, W. (1952) | References | Narcissus and the Child

What This Research Found

W.R.D. Fairbairn's collected papers, published in 1952 as Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality, represent the most radical revision of psychoanalytic theory within the British object relations tradition. Working in relative isolation in Edinburgh, Fairbairn developed a comprehensive theoretical framework that replaced Freud's drive theory with a purely relational model of human motivation—and in doing so, created concepts that illuminate the experience of narcissistic abuse with striking clarity.

The fundamental insight: libido is object-seeking, not pleasure-seeking. Fairbairn directly challenged Freud's core assumption that humans are motivated primarily by the need to discharge instinctual tension and seek pleasure. Instead, Fairbairn argued that libido—psychic energy—is fundamentally object-seeking: from the very beginning, the infant seeks not satisfaction of drives but relationship with a caring other. This seemingly technical distinction has revolutionary implications. If humans are fundamentally relationship-seeking, then psychological problems represent distorted relationships that have been internalised from childhood, not merely frustrated drives or constitutional defects. The child of a narcissistic parent does not develop pathology because something was wrong with their drives; they develop pathology because they internalised the only relationships available to them—relationships characterised by conditional love, exploitation, and emotional unreliability.

The ego splits in response to relational trauma. When a child depends on a caregiver who is sometimes loving and sometimes rejecting, neglectful, or cruel, the child faces an impossible situation characteristic of what we now understand as adverse childhood experiences. They cannot simply reject the caregiver—survival depends on maintaining the attachment bond. Nor can they integrate the contradictory experiences of the same caregiver as both good and bad. Instead, Fairbairn proposed, the child's ego splits. The child internalises the parent as a complex of 'objects' with different qualities: the 'ideal object' (the loving, reliable parent the child hopes for), the 'exciting object' (the tantalising, promising aspect that offers hope of love), and the 'rejecting object' (the cold, critical, abandoning aspect). These internalised objects are not simply memories; they become active structures within the psyche that continue to shape experience long after the original relationships have ended.

The tripartite structure of the psyche: central ego, libidinal ego, and anti-libidinal ego. Fairbairn proposed that the ego itself splits in relation to these objects. The 'central ego' is the adaptive, reality-oriented part of the personality that relates to others in the external world. The 'libidinal ego' is the needy, hopeful part that remains attached to the 'exciting object'—the promise of love that the bad parent occasionally offered. The 'anti-libidinal ego' (or 'internal saboteur') is the attacking, rejecting part that has identified with the 'rejecting object' and now turns the parent's criticism and contempt against the self. This structure explains why survivors of narcissistic abuse often experience a characteristic internal war that can manifest as emotional flashbacks: part of them desperately hopes for love (libidinal ego reaching toward the exciting object), while another part attacks this hope as pathetic and undeserving (anti-libidinal ego enacting the parent's rejection).

Attachment to bad objects explains why we cannot simply leave. Fairbairn's most clinically significant insight concerns why people remain attached to those who hurt them—why they cannot simply 'decide' to stop caring, stop hoping, or stop returning. The answer is that bad objects are not merely external people but have become internal structures. The child who was criticised relentlessly has internalised both the criticising parent and the criticised self; the internal saboteur continues the criticism even in the parent's absence. More profoundly, the child remains attached to these internal bad objects because they represent the only form of connection that feels familiar. The trauma bond is not just attachment to an external abuser but attachment to an internal object world built around that relationship. Leaving the external abuser doesn't mean the internal objects disappear; they continue their work from within, often driving the person toward new relationships that replicate the familiar dynamics.

How This Research Is Used in the Book

Fairbairn's theory is introduced in the Appendix on Object Relations Theory in Narcissus and the Child, where his concept of object-seeking libido is explained as foundational to understanding narcissistic personality development:

"Ronald Fairbairn, a Scottish psychoanalyst, made the most radical break from Freudian drive theory. Fairbairn argued that libido is not pleasure-seeking but object-seeking: the infant seeks not drive satisfaction but relationship with a caring other. This seemingly technical shift has profound implications. If humans are fundamentally relationship-seeking, then psychopathology represents not distorted drives but distorted relationships—specifically, the internalisation of painful early relationships that are then compulsively repeated."

Fairbairn's concept of the internal saboteur is particularly central to understanding narcissistic defences:

"Fairbairn introduced the concept of internal saboteurs—internalised bad objects that attack the self from within. The child who was criticised relentlessly internalises both the criticising parent and the criticised self; in adulthood, an internal voice continues the criticism even in the absence of external critics. Narcissistic grandiosity can be understood as a defence against these internal attacking objects: if I am perfect and special, the internal critic has nothing to criticise."

This framework explains why narcissistic grandiosity is not simply arrogance but a desperate defence against an internal persecutor that would otherwise make life unbearable.

Why This Matters for Survivors

If you experienced narcissistic abuse, Fairbairn's framework illuminates some of the most confusing and painful aspects of your experience—and offers a path toward understanding that doesn't blame you for normal responses to abnormal situations.

Your attachment to your abuser is not weakness—it is the survival adaptation of a child who needed connection to survive. The bond you formed with a narcissistic parent or partner is not evidence of poor judgment or masochism. When you were young, your survival literally depended on maintaining attachment to your caregiver, however inadequate or harmful. You did what any human child does: you adapted to the only relationship available. Fairbairn helps us understand that this adaptation involved internalising the relationship—the caregiver's criticism became your own self-criticism; their conditional love became your sense that you must perform to be worthy. These internalisations are not pathology but the normal response of a relationship-seeking being who had no choice about the relationships available.

The critical voice inside you is not your true self—it is an internalised object from your past. Many survivors describe a relentless internal critic that attacks their hopes, undermines their confidence, and fills them with shame and worthlessness. Fairbairn's concept of the internal saboteur (anti-libidinal ego) names this voice and explains its origin: it is not your authentic self-assessment but the internalised voice of whoever criticised, rejected, or attacked you in childhood. The internal saboteur does not speak truth about who you are; it speaks the lies that were told to you by someone who could not see you clearly. Recognising the saboteur as an internalised object—not as reality—is the first step toward loosening its grip. You are not fighting yourself; you are healing from what was done to you.

You keep hoping the narcissist will change because part of you is attached to that hope itself. Fairbairn's concept of the libidinal ego explains why you cannot simply stop hoping, even when evidence repeatedly shows your hope is unfounded. The libidinal ego is attached to the 'exciting object'—the tantalising promise that the narcissist will finally become the loving parent or partner you need. This hope became part of your psychological structure in childhood; it is not merely a thought you can choose to abandon. The hope itself represents a form of connection, perhaps the only form that felt safe. Understanding this helps explain why no-contact is so difficult: you are not simply leaving a person but abandoning an internal hope that has been part of you for as long as you can remember.

Healing involves gradually restructuring your internal object world, not simply gaining insight. Fairbairn's framework suggests that intellectual understanding, while valuable, is insufficient for healing. The internal objects were encoded before you had language; they operate at a level deeper than conscious thought. Healing requires new relational experiences—whether in therapy, friendship, or carefully chosen relationships—that gradually offer alternative templates. As the central ego strengthens through these new experiences, the power of the internal saboteur diminishes. This process is slow precisely because you are rebuilding the foundations of how you relate to yourself and others. But it is possible. The same neuroplasticity that allowed harmful objects to be internalised allows new, healthier objects to be developed.

Clinical Implications

For psychiatrists, psychologists, and trauma-informed clinicians, Fairbairn's framework offers essential guidance for understanding and treating both survivors of narcissistic abuse and, more rarely, narcissistic patients themselves.

The therapeutic relationship itself becomes the primary vehicle for change. If psychopathology represents internalised distorted relationships, then healing requires new relational experiences that can revise the internal object world. The therapist is not merely a neutral interpreter but a new kind of object that the patient gradually internalises. This places immense weight on the quality of the therapeutic relationship itself: the therapist must provide consistent, reliable, non-exploitative relating that offers an alternative to the patient's existing internal objects. Insight matters, but it is the relationship that heals.

Expect the patient's internal object relations to emerge in the transference. Fairbairn's framework predicts that patients will relate to the therapist as they relate to their internal objects. The patient whose internal world is dominated by a rejecting object will expect rejection from the therapist; the patient with a strong internal saboteur will attack their own hope for help. Rather than treating these manifestations as obstacles, the clinician can use them as windows into the patient's internal object world. What does the patient expect from you? How do they interpret your silences, your vacations, your mistakes? These transference reactions reveal the objects with which they are working.

Understand that attachment to bad objects represents loyalty, not pathology. Patients often arrive hoping to be 'cured' of their attachment to people who hurt them—and may feel ashamed of their continuing bonds. Fairbairn's framework helps clinicians understand that these attachments make developmental sense: the patient is not attached to bad objects because they are masochistic or weak but because those objects represent the only form of connection they knew. Helping patients understand this without shame—honouring the survival function of their adaptations—is essential. The goal is not to condemn the patient's attachments but to gradually offer alternatives that eventually become more compelling.

Work with the internal saboteur rather than simply interpreting it. Patients with strong internal saboteurs will attack their own progress in therapy. They may devalue the therapist, dismiss improvements, or arrange for failures that confirm the saboteur's message that they are unworthy of help. The clinician must recognise these as operations of the anti-libidinal ego rather than as realistic assessments. Naming the saboteur, exploring its origins, and helping the patient develop a central ego strong enough to resist its attacks is central to the work. This requires patience: the saboteur has protected the patient for decades and will not yield easily.

Consider the spectrum from schizoid to narcissistic organisation. Fairbairn's work focused particularly on schizoid phenomena—the withdrawal from external relationships and retreat into an internal world. Narcissistic organisation can be understood as a different response to similar failures: rather than withdrawing, the narcissist constructs a grandiose false self characterised by grandiose narcissism that defends against the internal saboteur. Understanding where on this spectrum a patient falls helps guide treatment: schizoid patients need help reconnecting with external reality; narcissistic patients need help relinquishing defences that have protected them from internal persecution but at enormous interpersonal cost.

Broader Implications

Fairbairn's concepts, though developed in the consulting room, illuminate patterns that extend far beyond individual psychology into families, organisations, and society.

The Intergenerational Transmission of Internal Objects

Internal object relations do not stay within individuals; they are transmitted across generations through the relational patterns parents enact with their children. A parent whose internal world is dominated by a rejecting object will, without conscious intention, reproduce that rejection in relation to their own children. The child does not merely experience the parent's behaviour; they internalise the relationship, developing their own internal saboteur modelled on the parent's treatment. This creates what the book discusses as intergenerational trauma—not merely learned behaviour but deeply encoded internal structures that persist even when the individual consciously wants to parent differently. Breaking these cycles requires more than good intentions; it requires restructuring one's own internal object world through practices like therapy, self-compassion, and building safe relationships so that healthier patterns are available to transmit.

Relationship Patterns in Adulthood

Fairbairn's framework helps explain why survivors of narcissistic families often find themselves in familiar relationship patterns despite conscious efforts to choose differently. The internal objects formed in childhood do not simply wait to be activated; they actively seek confirmation. The libidinal ego gravitates toward relationships that offer the exciting-object promise of love just out of reach, explaining the pattern of love-bombing followed by withdrawal that feels so compelling. The internal saboteur undermines relationships that don't match the template—those that offer consistent care may feel boring, suspicious, or simply 'wrong.' Understanding these as internal object operations rather than evidence of fundamental brokenness can be liberating: you are not doomed to repeat; you are carrying objects that can, with effort, be revised.

Workplace and Organisational Dynamics

Organisations can function as external stages on which individuals' internal object dramas are enacted. The employee whose internal world is dominated by a rejecting object may experience ordinary feedback as devastating criticism; the manager with an internal saboteur may unconsciously create conditions that ensure failure. Conversely, toxic organisational cultures can activate and reinforce pathological internal object relations across the workforce, creating cascades of projection, blame, and scapegoating. Understanding Fairbairn's framework helps organisational consultants recognise when systemic problems reflect not merely poor policies but the aggregation of individual internal object operations—and when policies that seem straightforward will fail because they don't account for the internal worlds of those enacting them.

Political and Ideological Movements

The concept of attachment to bad objects has troubling implications for understanding why populations sometimes support leaders or systems that manifestly harm them. If attachment to bad objects represents the familiar, and if the internal saboteur attacks hope for anything better, then exploitative leaders may succeed precisely by reproducing dynamics that feel familiar to populations whose internal worlds were shaped by similar treatment. The authoritarian who promises protection through strength may appeal specifically to those whose internal worlds were formed in environments of unpredictable threat. Understanding this does not excuse complicity with harmful systems but helps explain its psychological substrate—and suggests that addressing political dysfunction may require attending to the internal object worlds of citizens, not merely their political education.

Legal and Custody Considerations

Family courts regularly encounter the consequences of pathological internal object relations without the lens to understand them. The parent whose internal saboteur attacks their own hope may present as appropriately humble while actually being depressed and potentially at risk. The narcissistic parent whose grandiose self defends against internal persecution may present as confident and stable while being incapable of genuine attunement to the child. Fairbairn's framework helps evaluators look beyond surface presentation to underlying object relational structure: which parent can provide the consistent, reliable, non-exploitative relating that allows a child to develop healthy internal objects? Which parent's pathology will be transmitted to the next generation?

Clinical Training and Supervision

Therapists bring their own internal objects to clinical work. The supervisor with a strong internal saboteur may attack supervisees' hope and creativity; the supervisor with fragile internal structures may require supervisees to provide narcissistic mirroring. Fairbairn's framework suggests that clinical training must attend not merely to technique but to trainees' internal object worlds—helping them develop central egos strong enough to provide therapeutic relationships that are genuinely new for patients, rather than unconsciously replicating the object relations the trainee brought from their own history. Supervision itself can serve as a space where internal objects are examined and gradually revised.

Limitations and Considerations

Fairbairn's influential framework has important limitations that warrant acknowledgment.

Theoretical rather than empirical foundations. Fairbairn developed his theory through clinical observation and theoretical reasoning, not systematic empirical research. While the concepts resonate with clinical experience and have been influential, they are difficult to operationalise for research. The existence of 'internal objects' as discrete psychic structures, rather than as useful metaphors, is assumed rather than demonstrated. Contemporary researchers might frame similar observations in terms of implicit relational patterns, neural circuits, or attachment representations—formulations that lend themselves better to empirical investigation.

Limited direct clinical writing. Unlike Winnicott, who wrote extensively about technique, Fairbairn wrote primarily theoretical papers. How exactly to work with internal objects in clinical practice—what to interpret when, how to use the transference, what constitutes progress—is less developed than the theoretical framework itself. His analysand and collaborator Harry Guntrip extended the clinical application, but questions remain about how Fairbairn's theory translates into moment-to-moment therapeutic work.

Historical and cultural context. Fairbairn developed his theory primarily through work with Scottish patients in the mid-twentieth century, including traumatised war veterans and sexually abused children. The specific developmental pathways and internal object configurations he described may reflect that historical and cultural context more than universal human experience. What counts as a 'bad object,' how schizoid versus narcissistic solutions develop, and what constitutes healthy internal object relations may vary across cultures and historical periods.

Potentially overly deterministic. Fairbairn's framework can suggest that internal objects formed in childhood are relatively fixed, requiring intensive therapeutic work to revise. This may underestimate the capacity for change outside therapy, the role of constitutional factors in resilience, and the possibility that different domains of functioning may involve different object relations. Some individuals may change dramatically through life experiences alone; others may not change despite extensive therapy. The framework could benefit from more attention to individual variation in capacity for internal object revision.

Historical Context

Fairbairn developed his theoretical papers during the 1940s, a period of intense ferment in British psychoanalysis. The Controversial Discussions (1941-1945) divided the British Psychoanalytical Society into factions aligned with Melanie Klein and Anna Freud, with an Independent group (sometimes called the 'Middle Group') attempting to maintain neutrality. Though Fairbairn was geographically isolated in Edinburgh and didn't participate directly in these debates, his work addressed similar questions: how should psychoanalysis understand the earliest phases of development? What is the fundamental nature of human motivation?

Fairbairn's solutions were more radical than either Klein's or Anna Freud's. While Klein emphasised early object relations, she retained the concept of instinctual drives, particularly the death instinct. Fairbairn eliminated drives entirely, proposing that libido is object-seeking from birth—that the very concept of 'drive' was a theoretical mistake. This placed him at odds with orthodox psychoanalysis but aligned him with the later development of relational psychoanalysis, which would take up his ideas decades later.

The collection Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality (1952) brought together papers written over the previous decade, making Fairbairn's ideas available to a wider audience. Published in America as An Object-Relations Theory of the Personality, it influenced the development of self psychology (Kohut acknowledged Fairbairn's influence) and became foundational for the relational psychoanalysis movement that emerged in the 1980s and 1990s. Stephen Mitchell, a central figure in relational psychoanalysis, explicitly drew on Fairbairn's object-seeking model.

Fairbairn's ideas were further developed by his analysand Harry Guntrip, who extended the clinical application and emphasised the 'regressed ego' as the hidden core of the personality that requires therapeutic attention. Contemporary clinicians influenced by Fairbairn include those working in relational psychoanalysis, attachment-based therapies, and object relations approaches to personality disorders.

Psychoanalytic Studies of the Personality

APA Citation