Breaking old relationship patterns with Fairbairn’s model

Have you ever wondered why you sometimes get stuck in recurring but unsatisfactory patterns in relationships and in life in general? Despite painful outcomes and a vow to yourself to learn from whatever went wrong, you unwittingly find yourself in a similar situation again and again?

This could be with a romantic partner, perhaps you seek romantic relationships which turn out not to be good for you, but it could equally be relationships with family or friends which turn out to be disappointing. Or it could be your relationship with an activity or a substance – say work, computer games, shopping, food, alcohol or drugs.

Perhaps you are hoping (even just for a moment) that one of these things will offer happiness and fulfilment, but it never quite happens that way. Or perhaps you just find yourself continually in an unhappy place feeling resentful and angry.

So what is the Fairbairn model, and where do problems begin?

I believe a model developed by Scottish psychoanalyst Ronald Fairbairn, writing in the mid-20th century, offers key insights that can help us recognise these patterns and break out of them.

Fairbairn gained experience working in an orphanage with children who had been severely neglected and abused by their parents. He was struck that, despite the appalling treatment suffered by these children, when asked what they wanted, they strongly chose a return to those very same parents. They hated the prospect of a more comfortable home with new foster parents, and just wanted to go home to the parents they knew.

The centrality of relationships 

For Fairbairn, this underlined the centrality of relationships in human motivation. Earlier analysts based their theories on the (seemingly obvious) pleasure principle – the idea that as humans we are wired to avoid pain and move in the direction of pleasure. But here was striking evidence that we are motivated by something even stronger: the need for a bond with another. And this makes sense considering that, as infants and small children, our very survival depends on how close our bonds are with care figures.

It took many decades and simultaneous and subsequent work by other analysts and researchers for this insight to become fully accepted: the centrality of attachment and relationship in shaping how we function as adults.

Three types of relationships

Fairbairn provides a model which posits three types of relationship (or relational pairs) we all hold within us. One relational pair is good and offers us what we need in life, but two are bad and lead us to difficulty. These relationships are taken in by us in childhood and we hold them throughout our lives. They are represented as pairs – one part representing ourselves (or ego), the other part representing the other person (or object). Originally, in childhood, the object would have been our parents. Later in life, these pairs will be the basis of how we act with others as adults.

The good relationship: ideal object – central ego 

The first relational pairing comes from the good part of our childhood experience. For most of us, it is what we are aware of as the conscious part of our personality. It comprises:

• ideal object
• central ego

If we had good enough parenting, this is the core relationship that sees us through with positive relationships most of the time. In childhood, our parents were mostly attentive and nurturing; they offered support when we needed it and helped us see the world clearly and realistically. As adults, we are then able to approach relationships positively and handle setbacks.

Perhaps when you are facing a difficult task, you are able to think back to what one of your parents or another adult figure from your childhood might have said or done and gain strength from that.

First bad relationship: rejecting object – anti-libidinal ego

But no parents are ideal all the time. So what happens when relational messages from childhood are not so supportive? Perhaps our parents were sometimes overly critical, neglectful or even abusive. In this case, another pair of ego states becomes relevant.

Children who feel rejected by parents become dejected, angry, bitter and resentful. The relational pairing is called:

• rejecting object
• anti-libidinal ego

The rejecting object (or parent figure) is characterised as being cruel, righteous, critical and certain of its rightness. The anti-libidinal ego has more of the character of a bitter and resentful child, passive-aggressive and forever wanting the rejecting object to change. This relational pattern remains unconscious for most of us most of the time, except when stressed.

At moments of anxiety, when we don’t have enough central ego present, we can fall into this pattern. Perhaps becoming righteous and critical of others, or else taking the part of a resentful and angry victim. Despite the painful nature of this relationship, if we are familiar with it, we will be drawn back to it over and over again.

The extent to which this will happen is determined by how much supportive good parenting (in the ideal object-central ego pairing) we experienced versus inadequate or bad parenting (in the two other pairings).

Second bad relationship: exciting object – libidinal ego

There is a second relational pairing that is also unconscious for most people most of the time. On the surface, this pairing appears to be pleasurable but, in reality, is not healthy, and hence is another type of bad relationship. It represents an attempt by the child to find some relief and pleasure in the child-parent relationship, even where there wasn’t much good present.

This pairing is called:

• exciting object
• libidinal ego

The narrative attached to this pairing is that the other person or thing will provide me with what I need if I behave in the right way to please them. Perhaps as a child, you sometimes felt love to be conditional on doing what your parent wanted.  You might have come to believe that if you please them well enough, they will give you all that you need.

As adults, this relationship may play out as searching for happiness and fulfilment by superficial means, perhaps through sex, alcohol/drugs, shopping, or relationships with a promise of something more than can be realistically delivered. It might be the promise that if you work hard enough to please the other, all your problems will go away.

Some people work very hard to please a real or imagined exciting object. It can provide energy, but ultimately is empty and self-defeating.

How therapy can help break the cycle

So how can we reduce or eliminate time spent in the two negative pairing patterns discussed here and stay more in the first one?

The first thing is to recognise the patterns as they appear in life. Perhaps you sometimes take a comment or an action by other people as a criticism, even when it was not intended as such. This can put you in a negative mood and start a downward spiral where the rejecting object – anti-libidinal ego relationship plays out unnecessarily, sabotaging enjoyment.

Or perhaps you sometimes seek solace in games or gambling, but the good feeling never lasts as you hoped for, and it takes you on a rollercoaster of dashed excitement. That would place you in the exciting object – libidinal ego pairing.

The first of these bad pairings inhibits basic enjoyment, which gives meaning to life. The second bad pairing threatens basic stability. Some people oscillate between the two, never finding balance and true satisfaction.

With the help of therapy, you can better identify the reality of relationships with others or activities in the present day. You can see when it helps to look back at your original family relationships and link them to the patterns you unconsciously fall into as an adult.

It also involves spending more time in the good relational pairing – the ideal object-central ego. This means finding a supportive and honest relationship (inside and outside of therapy) to make the bad types of relationships obsolete.