From instinct to self: a psychoanalytic exploration into a Fairbairnian understanding of depression through a dialogue with my imaginary Virginia Woolf
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Date
29/11/2016Author
Fang, Ni-Ni
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Abstract
This thesis explores a psychoanalytic understanding of depression from the
perspective of Fairbairn’s object relations theory, something Fairbairn did not himself
undertake. Highlighting the historical and political contexts of the development of
psychoanalysis in Fairbairn’s time, I underline the marginalization of Fairbairn’s theory,
which I attribute primarily to his lifelong endeavour to challenge the orthodoxy of the
time: instinct theory. I chart a theoretical trajectory from the instinct theory (Freud,
Klein) to object relations theory (Fairbairn), to contextualise my argument for the
potential of Fairbairn’s theory. My argument aligns with Rubens’ (1994, 1998) view that
an extension of Fairbairn’s theory beyond what Fairbairn himself originally proposed on
the subject of depression is not only advantageous but also necessary.
The Fairbairnian understanding of depression at the heart of this inquiry is
illustrated through my personal engagement with psychoanalytic theory and framed by
my subjective experiences and interpretations. Contending that theory requires personal
voices to make sense and be relevant, I engage creatively and personally using the
method of letter-writing to an imaginary companion - Virginia Woolf. The Virginia
Woolf I construct and with whom I engaged in the research process is based on factual
information about Virginia Woolf along with her published texts. In this process I blur
the boundary between the real Woolf and my imaginary Woolf. Troubling the edge of
reality and fantasy, I use the Woolf of my imagination to stage a process of getting to
know Woolf personally, working to develop a trusting relationship and engaging her in a
conversation about theory. My letters to Virginia Woolf trace an unfolding dialogue in
which we tell and hear each other’s most intimate stories, once unthinkable and
unsayable. The letters trace the transformation of my own understanding of the nature of
depression, and through them I seek to establish a line of theoretical argument about
depression running through the claims of Freud and Klein before turning to the
Fairbairnian version of object relations theory. In so doing this thesis complicates
psychoanalytic knowledge of the nature of depression, and argues that, framed in
Fairbairn’s system, depression can be understood as an actively organised psychic
manoeuvre to defend against changes to the endopsychic structure. In other words, and
as elaborated through the letters constructed in this thesis, I argue that depression can be
understood as a defence against the disintegration of a particular sense of self sponsored
by internal object relationships.