ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the work of the psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn and demonstrates the way in which his theories of the ‘moral defence’ (1943) and ‘endopsychic structures’ (1944) provide us with a structural object relations theory that helps us to gain a deeper insight into the foundational elements which lead to the intractability of the repetition compulsions that stem from relational trauma. In Fairbairn’s paradigm, ‘bad objects’ from traumatic attachments in infancy foster a ‘closed system’ of internal objects in which the individual becomes one’s own prisoner (1994).
Fairbairn’s theories have become an important influence on the development of the curse position theory. This particularly applies to the topographic levels of relational functioning between the level of the ‘primary curse’ and its defensive secondary counterpart. This model draws upon Fairbairn’s developmental models of primary ‘libidinal attachment’ and secondary defensive superego (1943). Importantly, Fairbairn shows that there is a distinctly moral form of masochism evident in developmental trauma, where parts of the self are ‘renounced’ in order to be ‘saved’ or ‘redeemed’, which Fairbairn calls the ‘moral defence’ (ibid.). The conditionality of the ‘moral defence’ is illustrated in The Case of Christoph Haitzmann – a masochistic pact between the Devil and an impoverished painter. Fairbairn’s work remains highly pertinent to contemporary ‘mental health’ concerns today, and his thinking is therefore applied to the modern archetypes of the ‘saviour’, ‘people pleaser’, ‘empath’, and ‘narcissist’. A case illustration is presented to demonstrate Fairbairn’s theories in clinical practice and the application of his recommendations for treatment.
