The tyranny of relationality: Psychosocial implications of Ronald Fairbairn’s “object-seeking"

The paper revisits Fairbairn’s concept of “object-seeking”, situating it within the complex, often fraught relational dynamics between self and other in everyday life. Adopting a psychosocial lens, it explores how this “old” idea can generate new possibilities for sociopolitical critique. The discussion begins by contextualising Fairbairn’s thinking within his biography, foregrounding the interplay between contextual relations and social relations. It then revisits object-seeking as the primary libidinal force binding individuals to groups, culture, and institutions. From there, the paper examines the deeper, often unconscious tendencies that drive object-seeking, shaped by the conditionalities embedded in the endopsychic structure. In doing so, it critiques the idealised discourse of “relationality” often associated with Fairbairn, revealing its entanglement with dynamics of domination and subordination. These relational forms, it argues, sustain broader social structures marked by tyranny. The paper reimagines a psychoanalytic frame from the position of radical marginality – the liminal space where oppression and political resistance intersect – as a crucial site for cultivating relational alternatives and critical thinking capable of challenging entrenched hierarchies.