ABSTRACT
"Holding" and "containing" are commonly used and even more commonly misused concepts from different theoretical psychoanalytical traditions. Their importance within psychoanalysis cannot be doubted as they are an integral part of the fabric of what is known as "object relations theory". Freud certainly implied an object relations theory and the work of Klein elaborated his ideas. The basic tenets of object relations theory have been most clearly depicted by Winnicott, Fairbairn, Balint, and Sutherland. Kemberg, who has for some time, alongside Sutherland, studied and expounded Fairbairn's work, maintains that object relations theory is the crossroads where psychoanalysis and social theory meet. Most people working with groups use ideas borrowed from this theory, and certainly there has been a tendency in the last decade or so within group-analytic circles to begin to use and explore object relations theory and its relevance to group processes.
