This article is only available in the PDF format. Download the PDF to view the article, as well as its associated figures and tables.
This work presents a statement of the basic theoretical framework developed by the British school of psychoanalysis, which emphasizes the importance of unconscious object relations in determining the subsequent perceptual world and interpersonal relationships, and a testing technique that is a logical extension of that framework into the field of psychological assessment. The theory of object relations that has been developed by Fairbairn and others, in England, has focused on the importance of unconscious object relations of a fantasy nature which were incorporated at an early stage and never relinquished and which play a vital role in determining the nature of the phenomenal world in the adult. The derivation of the testing technique from the theoretical rationale is an important step methodologically that should lead to a direct communication among the clinicians who proceed from the same framework, thus eliminating the many test-centered and esoteric conceptual systems that now pervade