Object Constancy

Does it get better?

I feel like I can't hold onto my relationship with L if I'm not with her. The longer she's away, the harder it is for me to hold her in mind. And I have a ton of stuff to help! I have emails, voicemails, a scrapbook, transitional objects, etc. I am able to retain some memories and feelings, but they start feeling like lies. Like I can't trust my experiences. After 2-3 sessions back, I'm able to reestablish our bond. But it's so frustrating. And painful. The disconnect sucks!

Any advice on how to get better at object constancy? How to maintain the "with-ness" feelings?

HUGS Scarlet. I wonder this as well. I'm not good with object constancy. Most of my appointments with T feel like it's the first time I ever met her. Especially because I only go every other week or sometimes every third week. I don't have any transitional items from her.


With former T I had voicemails and a letter and I could email her whenever I wanted which helped but created huge attachment issues and transference issues on my part. I still struggled with object constancy with her but not as much.


It's just gotten worse. I wish I knew some tricks to help. HUGS Scarlet.

I find it very difficult to maintain relationships and to understand that care continues to exist during absence. Can someone explain why object constancy is important? It seems fanciful to me.

As for family, i was always like, well if they didnt care when they WERE there, why should i care when they're NOT there? At least then i had some freedom. I could not understand my cousins who were such big crybabies for their mom. OTOH, they got a bath every night.

I know what you mean by "...start feeling like lies." I feel the same way and it causes me to feel very anxious. I don't know why that happens. Does it occur with other relationships in your life?

This is something I haven't had to deal with. And my children had no problem with it either. Let me think if I can explain the opposite experience of this - very secure object constancy.

I can say neither I nor my kids every needed transitional objects, photos, etc. to maintain that secure assurance and trust in the adults (or others) in our lives. It is that complete faith that the other person hasn't emotionally gone anywhere when they physically aren't there. Their caring and that relationship still exists even in absence.

I can remember my kids being completely comfortable going to daycare and school. They were like "bye Mom" (if they even bothered to say "bye Mom" before they ran off to play). Even on extended vacations, etc., they were perfectly comfortable with their aunts or cousins or grandparents while we were away. I guess it was an innate trust and deep sense of safety.

My husband didn't have that kind of upbringing. His childhood was anything but safe; his family was not safe. It took him many years into our marriage before he was comfortable with me being away for extended periods of time (such as to visit family or something like that). As our relationship has matured and he has come into our own little family with our own kids, his anxiety about me being away has improved greatly. I think it took him establishing his own safe family and putting down his own "roots" where he was able to grow away from those bad early experiences for him to find his own place of constancy in our own family and relationships. He had to basically "end" his old family ties and "begin" his own new family where he was in control.

Ever since I was little, I've had object constancy issues. I had transitional objects even from my parents! And I'd get home sick really quickly as a child. I could never do sleepovers. Even now as an adult, I can only spend one night away from home before I have an anxiety attack. I'm not really attached to my family. But I'm very attached to H and L.

I don't really have anyone else in my life. There's T. I feel extremely disconnected from T because it's been almost a year since I've seen her. I have very little memories of her even though I worked with her for 4 years before she went on maternity leave. I feel sad about that because I know I was attached to her. I know we had a great relationship. But it's like I've forgotten her.

I don’t have anything useful to contribute to this thread, I just wanted to say I feel this way with people too. I wish I didn’t, it makes me feel weak and unloved most of the time.

I have had this issue specifically with my therapist but not with other key people in my life. I knew, for example, that my parents were there and continued to love me even when we were apart. But for me the therapeutic relationship felt very magical and unreal.

In a sense, the relationship does cease to exist out of session. My T allowed limited out of session contact (I would write rambling emails, she would write terse replies and on a few occasions we had short phone calls or unplanned extra sessions). This helped me trust her as a compassionate human but did not help with object permanence because even though it was “proof” that she existed out of session, the problem was not really a cognitive one.

I suspect that’s why the voicemails and transitional objects and all that don’t help you the way they’d help a child, Scarlet. For a child it’s both emotional and cognitive: they really don’t know for sure that what they can’t see continues to exist and this causes them distress. You know cognitively that your T exists but you nevertheless feel the distress from a much younger place within yourself.

My suggestion would be to shift away from thinking of the therapist as your center of comfort and security (ie. trying to make her permanent) but concentrate on making a place of comfort and security within yourself. That way, when you need comfort, your instinct will be to go to the place you’ve built within rather than trying to find or strengthen your therapist‘s presence in her absence.

There are lots of ways to do this. I like analogy and imagery so visualizing a metaphor for what I need can be helpful: a deep well/aquifer of strength/peace (“dig deep”) or a tree with deep roots (“connected, resilient”). Also sometimes I need to literally just giving myself what I need: food, rest, a heating pad, some time outside. If you feel cared-for or soothed in session, name it and notice how it feels and what is making you feel that way. That feeling is there ready to be elicited from within you. It belongs to you. You can learn to do that for yourself.

This is profound, thank you for sharing it. It really resonates for me and the work I am doing at the moment.

"It belongs to you." The first time my t gave me a transitional object (before he left on a trip), i was CERTAIN that i would have to give it back.

I have this issue too. What causes a child to not have object constancy, exactly?

I think part of it is when parents see us as an extension of themselves and not a person in our own right. Both my parents made clear to me that nothing belonged to me, it was all theirs. So who was i?

I struggled with this too. R didn't seem to exist only when he was in front of me.

I struggle with this too with all people in my life including my T. I have since realised that I actually 'shut down' from people if we are apart too long. I am away from extended family alot and I find myself rarely missing them. Maybe the first day or two but then it stops. The connection I felt to them whilst with them disappears somewhat and it feels like they are strangers. Cognitively I of course know they are not.
I would have thought that some of this arises as a result of unpredictable or inconsistent parenting and attachment injuries as well as other things? I really like the answer above about how the healing is finding something with in ourselves and not relying on our Ts. I also wonder if though if there is any healing to be had from having a T who is consistently there and shows that they are and available or is that just throwing money into the air. Is there a point where that consistency can help to rewire the brain to realize that someone can still be there even when not physically there or is that far too simplified?

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Originally Posted by Starry_Night I have this issue too. What causes a child to not have object constancy, exactly?

You can read a ton about it online but basically, lack of object constancy is a fear of abandonment by a significant person. Generally, lack of object constancy shows up as anxiety about the other person being "gone" or "not real", or that our previous interactions with the person are "a lie." The other person and our relationship to them feels real and genuine only when we are together with them.

Another way that a lack of object constancy manifests is when we cut ourselves off from the relationship and become numbed out. As in, "I'll leave you before you have a chance to leave me."

In a way I can relate to some of the stuff posted here - I’m more on the “numbed out” side as BethRags mentioned. Even when I’m with people I like and have known for years, our interactions often don’t feel that deep to me.

I have object constancy issues, too, more around therapists than other people in my life (hm, and a couple other male authority figures--though I did go through a separation anxiety phase around 12 when my mom had cancer, which she survived). I've been helped some by transitional objects, like with ex-marriage counselor, it was a particularly caring voicemail he left at one point that I would listen to if I needed comforting. I used to see ex-T in the same office as him, and I'd also find comfort in just seeing his car in the parking lot or his office door closed (meaning he was there and in session). Ex-T had seemed puzzled that I was comforted just seeing evidence of his being there.

With current T, I've had a few different stones from his office, which helped some (and also led to a huge conflict, but that's another story...). I wanted him to leave me voicemail (or just record a voice memo on my phone) when he was going out of town once or else (hand)write me a few words, but he never did. (He did write a couple words of encouragement for something else.) I wonder if he didn't want to because of the ex-MC one (which I'd told him about).

Some of my lack of object constancy will show up in outside contact between sessions (to current T, ex-MC, and ex-T). Where it's like I needed a reminder that they were there. Sometimes I literally have asked, "Just making sure you still exist," particularly if they were on vacation, we'd had a conflict, etc.

Current T is more of a "showing he cares" type rather than saying the words (and he's weird and very specific about how he's willing to phrase it for clients--something else that once led to a conflict!). A couple weeks ago, I said how I feel I have accepted that he cares due to his actions and (for the most part) consistency. But then I ended up emailing to say that I do still want the words on occasion, as I'm a words person. He ended up sending a very sweet (but still within his boundaries) email back, talking about things like "I care a great deal about your well-being" (his boundary is not saying the phrase "I care about you") and other things beyond what I'd have expected (like about my being a good person and his having compassion for my struggles).

I'd said in the email asking for that how I wouldn't need him to say it all the time, just on occasion. I feel now like the email is something I can look at when I have doubts that he cares (without having to reach out to him). I was thinking about it, and I am doing better with object constancy (and insecure/anxious attachment) lately, but that I do still need reminders at times for when the doubt creeps in.

I think it's a long process to work through, like most anything that likely has roots in childhood. And I agree on the comment of it coming from inconsistent parenting, or parents who didn't meet one's needs in some way (like emotional needs or otherwise). Or dealing with some sort of abandonment at a young (or older) age.

Yeah, object consistency is an issue for me. I think my T is using the concept of consistent availability for me. to be clear not constant... consistent. I am at a place of basically 2 years of daily contact (email or session), including weekends. The emails are not crisis emails. I email typically in the mornings of the days we don't meet about whatever I want to talk about. I used to journal to her between sessions and give it to her so this has basically replaced that. The difference with this is I do get a reply from her. Sometimes my emails are really short 2-3 sentences; most of them are about 1/4 a page. Her replies are usually 3-4 sentences and very much a template, in which only 1 or 2 sentences is in reply to what I actually wrote. Occasionally they will be longer.

I find I use her reply emails through out the day, I'll open them and just leave them up on my screen as one of the many windows I have open on my computer.

I do feel like it is making a difference. I have gone from being afraid of something happening to her (and who would take care of me), to being afraid that she is someone different after breaks, and not believing that she is there... to believing she is there and often when in crisis and I email her, I can calm in knowing that she will reply the next time she has time, is in her dedicated to work mode time. Sometimes that reply will be quick and sometimes it won't be until the next day... it will come. Also as part of my process, it sometimes gets confusing when I'm writing to her if it is her I am writing to or if I'm writing to another part of myself. Which I think is part of the process of internalizing the object.

The video visits have caused some issues, it's hard to explain. So, we'll see what things will be like once I get to see her in person again.

I think it's harder to figure out what is needed to grow into and through object consistency when other relationships in one's life are unstable for whatever reasons.

Well at first babies don’t have object constancy. If they can’t see something, it’s gone. Then at around 4-6 months if something is taken out of sight, they’ll look for it. They’ve begun to hold onto the idea of it even when they can’t actually see it.

It’s kind of cool to watch. The idea is more complex as it starts to apply to attachment. How do you know your person is going to come back?

If parents talk to their toddlers about it gently and create familiar rituals around separating and coming back together (and actually come back like they said they would), children learn that their world is predictable and their adults are reliable. So they learn to hold onto the idea of the person who isn’t there and it’s comforting because they know from experience that their person will be back soon.

If things are chaotic and/or the child isn’t helped with that developmentally appropriate anxiety, they might not trust that their person will come back or might doubt that they exist at all when they’re out of sight.

What I mean though is that you’re using your therapist to help you locate develop that skill within yourself. Like you take the comfort or safety that you get from the therapist‘s presence and you learn to nurture it within you. So it’s not that you’re not relying on the therapist, it’s that you’re recognizing that it isn’t the therapist you want to hold onto but the comfort itself.

if your comfort and safety reside within another person, any other person, you will never be really safe or comfortable. You’ll always be chasing that feeling, obsessed with that person, and your moments of peace will be fleeting. If the comfort and safety reside within you, you will always have access to them.

You can build this through a secure attachment but the idea is that the attachment is helping you grow security within.

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Originally Posted by RoxanneToto In a way I can relate to some of the stuff posted here - I’m more on the “numbed out” side as BethRags mentioned. Even when I’m with people I like and have known for years, our interactions often don’t feel that deep to me.

Me, too.