5 | SELF AND OBJECT REPRESENTATIONS
A representation is a cognitive phenomenon, a mental symbol that
represents an object from the physical world.10,12Imagine a pencil in your mind: give it a length, color, and texture,
this is a representation. Mental phenomena that correspond to self and
object representations are of particular psychodynamic relevance. These
representations can be conscious or unconscious.
A self representation is a mental representation that contains the
positive and negative mental and body characteristics of the individual
—virtues and defects, strengths and weaknesses, etc.—: our physical
appearance; our needs and desires; our cognitive, affective, behavioral,
and interpersonal traits —a trait is the relatively stable tendency
over time that a person has to present certain psychological
characteristics—13; and our ideal self —that
which we want to become— and moral beliefs.14 In
order to consider healthy the representation that a person has of him or
herself, positive characteristics must predominate over negative ones
— colloquially to have good self-esteem—, both positive and negative
characteristics must be as congruent with reality as possible —for
example, I could have the firm belief that one day I will become
president of Mexico and this clearly will not happen— and finally, the
self representation must be relatively stable over time, so that if the
characteristics assigned to it change, they should not do so suddenly
but over the years. The self representations that an individual
activates can be inferred through behavior or through the patient´s
verbal communication. For example, imagine that you have just diagnosed
one of your patients with breast cancer, and that when she answers to
the question, what do you think and feel when receiving the diagnosis,
she says: “I´m very afraid doctor. I never thought I could be in a
situation like this, but there is nothing I can do, I have to face this
disease and overcome it, I will do everything I can and I will not be
defeated.” Based on this response, it can be inferred that the self
representation activated in the patient is that of a person surprised by
the bad news, but brave and with a desire to fight against the disease,
and not, in contrast, the self representation of someone who is defeated
and hopeless.
An object representation corresponds to the mental phenomenon that
represents an individual who is in the physical world, it is equivalent
to the previously described self representation, but that assigns
characteristics to a person who is not the subject whose mind contains
this representation. Let us return to the previous case of the patient
recently diagnosed with breast cancer and let us imagine that she now
answer the question regarding what she thinks of the doctor who gave her
the diagnosis: “I think that you´re just doing your job, doctor, and I
thank you for informing me with the tactful way you did”. Again, we can
infer that the object representation that the patient activates in this
situation is that of a person, the doctor, who is responsible, kind, and
empathetic.
These concepts are basic for the introduction of the next psychodynamic
phenomenon: internalized object relations.