“Objectification” in the context of relationships means contact in which one person sees in the other not a person, but an “object”, an object for the embodiment of his own desires. Anyone who does this is in an immature position. It takes a certain degree of maturity, growing up, to begin to see people in a complex, not fragmented way.

Healthy development includes respecting others as people with their own rights, needs, limitations, good and bad traits. A man or woman who views another person as an object and looks at him solely from the point of view of satisfying his own needs is not capable of healthy, mature relationships, especially romantic or sexual ones.

People prone to objectification are less capable of empathy than others. A person who sees others holistically can look at the world through the eyes of another, notice similarities and differences with him, recognize strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. These abilities determine the ability to sympathize and take another person’s point of view. It is difficult for a person who sees another as an object or function to have compassion and take the other’s place.

Objectification depends on the degree to which the child has been emotionally accepted or rejected by his immediate environment. If his needs were not met during childhood, the individual will feel insignificant, incompetent and unworthy of love. The understanding of the subject is connected by a person’s attitude towards himself as an independent, active figure.

Subjectivity is a category in psychology that expresses the essence of a person’s inner world, the possibility of creative transformation of the surrounding reality, the expression of one’s own opinion, emotions, feelings, based not on how it should be, but on how the subject himself thinks and feels.

Subjective relationships represent the interaction between people based on the recognition of each of them as an individual with their own unique needs, rights and values. In such relationships, people consider each other’s individuality and strive for mutual understanding, cooperation and respect.

Objectified relations can be compared to commodity-money relations. In such a relationship, one person views the other as an object that can be used or exchanged for something to satisfy his or her own needs, just as goods are exchanged for money. The value and significance of another person is determined solely in the context of obtaining benefits or satisfying one’s own interests. Such relationships lack recognition of the other person’s individuality, uniqueness, and rights, making them unhealthy and lacking depth.