Sacred Psychoanalysis - etheses Repository - University of ...

Appendix 5. A summary of Rizzuto’s concepts of god and object representations
1. Object representations are part of more complex psychic processes. For example, there
is a moment of meeting when two individuals relate to one another. This is a complex
exchange represented by an ‘object’ which is formed in the memory. A memory process
is established that rules, codifies, regulates, stores and retrieves ‘memories to the sense
of being oneself’ (Rizzuto 1979: 75). Present day encounters, such as with an analyst,
activate a psychoanalytic process of transference, where the memory process becomes
reactivated.
2. Psychoanalysis is one of several disciplines that help understand the concept of object
representation, and the psychoanalyst needs to recognize their own involvement in the
object representation process. Consequently ‘the analyst must resort to his own
memorial processes ... his empathic acceptance permits him to “create” representations
of his past and his objects’ (Rizzuto 1979: 76). Rizzuto alludes here to an important
concept that was later to become central to interpersonal and intersubjective approaches
to psychoanalysis (Stolorow, Atwood, and Brandchaft 1994; Stolorow, Brandchaft, and
Atwood 1987).
3. People experience the world as a succession of object relations and provide a framework
for the psyche.
‘We have never experienced life out of the context of objects. In the course of our
historical development as human beings, we have been storing endless, complex
memories (including our fantasies) of objects that form part of the memory’s reservoir.
Thus memories will inevitably be called to conscious or unconscious experience
whenever we deal with any aspect of ourselves that is object related. In as much as
there is not an aspect of ourselves not object-related in some way, we cannot wish, feel,
fantasize, or even live without memories of our objects’ (Rizzuto 1979: 77).
4. The ‘simple pathology of everyday living’ comes about because we are unable to
integrate our present sense of self, including our ideals, with conscious and unconscious
memorial processes.
5. These ‘memorial processes’, are composed of synthesized object representations and
multiple experiences over time and ‘the richness, the complexity, the dialectic
connection which object representations have with our self-representations is what gives
the constantly reworked memories of our objects their paramount importance in mental
life’ (Rizzuto 1979: 78).
6. Memories and object representations remain immortal in psychic reality – they are never
lost. ‘Memories of objects cannot be destroyed because they have no substance to
destroy’ (Rizzuto 1979: 79).
7. Theories of object representation require the acceptance of the concept of self as the
total person (Schafer 1976) - this is a complex and controversial area in psychoanalytic
metapsychology.
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