Object constancy refers to the ability of a person to use the function or representation of a caregiving other for self-soothing and comfort, even when the other person is not actually there. It’s the ability to feel a sense of security and to hold in mind a positive image of the other person even when that person is not physically present or is temporarily occupied or unattuned, as well as to trust that they still exist and that their soothing function still exists. 

Children usually develop some object constancy by around age 3. But some struggle with this even as adults. Some adults may even develop object constancy issues in their attachment relationships in adulthood, even if as children they felt secure. This is sometimes triggered by their fantasies about the other person, which can turn dark as soon as the other’s physical presence is not available, and they don’t have the reassurance of concretely seeing the other’s affection or warmth. Separateness can feel threatening, and a person may imagine being abandoned, or not existing in the mind of the other, when the other is not available, or they may project their anger at being left onto the attachment figure, and then imagine them withdrawing or acting cold in return. 

Whereas children may not have the ability to imagine another’s intentions or feelings towards them when they are not present, adults can elaborate the potential meanings of the absence in their imaginations- and interpret the lack of the other’s availability as personal, attacking, or intentional- whether based on projection, on past experiences, or on their image of the other person’s feelings towards them. This leads to not only a feeling of being left to one’s own devices in terms of self-soothing or emotion regulation, but also to fantasies of the other having malicious intent towards them. So there is a lack of an internal other to soothe the person, and a sense of threat at the same time. As Bion said, the absence of the other is not felt as just an “absence” or as something missing, but rather, that empty space becomes filled with a negative “presence”; with a feeling of persecution about the frustration and pain we feel. 

Some people have trouble also with evocative memory; bringing up a memory of a person  that is powerful or vivid enough to evoke (at least a trace of) the emotional experience the person had when the other was physically present. Obsessing can be one way of trying to conjure up the experience, although it doesn’t really help. Being unable to not just remember the details of something that we experienced, but also to remember what it felt like (for example, a calming or comforting feeling when we were together with the attachment figure), can handicap our ability to tolerate the moments when the experience is not currently available. Pulling up a good feeling can be very hard under the sway of frustration and emotional pressures,  especially when there is stress on the ego, or a person is emotionally overloaded. On the other hand, when a person is able to conjure up for themselves a good feeling based on a memory, they are able to re-experience positive moments even when they aren’t happening right now. 

Sometimes transitional objects can be helpful; these are concrete representations or objects that help us remember the feelings associated with another person or with a positive experience. Looking at a picture, reading a note, hearing a recording of someone’s voice: any of these things can at times help bridge the lack of a physically available other or a “feel good” experience in the moment with our object constancy difficulty.

When we feel able to hold on to another person’s presence or soothing function when not together with them, or if we’ve been able to internalize that function as our own, then there’s a part of us that’s able to say to us, “You’re going to be okay,” or “They’ll be back soon”, or “I’m here for you” in moments of distress. We can regulate our affect on our own, and even though it may not feel quite as good as getting that regulation from another person, it can feel good enough to get us through a hard moment- without feeling like we’re going to be annihilated, die from frustration, or experience the wait for the other to come back as torturous.  

When there is a lack of object constancy, the feeling that we can’t wait another minute until we reunite with the other; that we might lose ourselves completely without them; or that we cannot manage our own emotions without access to the other’s soothing function- these are fantasies. These feelings may also be a memory- from perhaps a preverbal time in infancy when our survival depended on the other’s presence completely, and when the wait for the other to feed us, soothe us, or take care of us may have felt like eternity. We had no way to comfort ourselves, no way to actively try to remember the other; no way to understand what was happening to us, or that the other would come back soon. 

Learning how to take something inside of ourselves and to hold onto it, as well as how to use it fully when it’s available, is a skill that some of us have to work on; it doesn’t come naturally for everyone. We have learn to let ourselves be fed relationally, and to feel satisfied, as well as to take time to digest what we’ve been given, and to make it our own, and to trust that what we take in from outside ourselves will nourish us rather than poison or deplete us. Some of us are afraid to take in, and afraid to let ourselves accept the separateness of the other, and the spaces in between our caregivers and us. We don’t want to accept the reality or not being able to get whatever we want in whatever form we want it. But the reality is the reality, and learning to let ourselves take in what’s available instead of waiting for what isn’t, helps to make the unbearable into something bearable.