import gc thingy = object() class A(object): def f(self): return 1 x = thingy r = gc.get_referrers(thingy) if "__module__" in r[0]: dct = r[0] else: dct = r[1] a = A() for i in range(10): a.f() dct["f"] = lambda self: 2 print(a.f()) # should print 1