A subsection of psychoanalysis which prioritizes the role of the object in childhood development. It is generally associated with the British Psycho-Analytic Society, whose most notable members included Balint, Michael, Klein, Melanie, and Winnicott, Donald Woods. In contrast to traditional psychoanalysis, object relations theory focuses on the relationship between the infant and the mother, not the father-child, or field, relationship that is central to Freud, Sigmundâs thought. It also conceives this relationship as subject (child) to object (mother), or even to part-object (the breast), which again contrasts with Freud who acknowledges the role of the object but still wants to see the relationship between child and parent as intersubjective. Further Reading: G. Kohon (ed.) The British School of Psychoanalysis: The Independent Tradition (1986). J. Laplanche and J-B. Pontalis Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse (1967), translated as The Language of Psychoanalysis (1973). objet (petit) a In Lacan, Jacquesâs psychoanalysis, the object of desire that can never be obtained. It has a range of meanings in Lacanâs work, but the most consistent and widely recognized understanding of it is that it is that which desire lack in perpetuity and is therefore that which causes desire. In later formulations, Lacan came to think of it as the surplus value of enjoyment (jouissance). Lacan always insisted that the term remain untranslated so as to give it an algebraic status in English, and for the most part this is respected. Literally, it might be rendered as the âobject (little) aâ, but this is still not completely right since the âaâ stands for autre (other), so strictly speaking it should be the âobject (little) oâ.