When a child is not desired

Postgraduate Thesis uoadl:2879838 697 Read counter

Unit:
Κατεύθυνση Ψυχοδυναμική Ψυχοθεραπεία σε Ιατρικό Πλαίσιο
Library of the School of Health Sciences
Deposit date:
2019-07-26
Year:
2019
Author:
Vagia Christna
Supervisors info:
Βασλαματζής Γρηγόριος, Ομότιμος Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ, Επιβλέπων
Λαζαράτου Ελένη, Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Παπανικολάου Αικατερίνη, Αναπληρώτρια Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Original Title:
Όταν δεν επιθυμούν ένα παιδί
Languages:
Greek
Translated title:
When a child is not desired
Summary:
The word trauma is a concept regarded as the cornerstone on which the theory
of psychoanalysis was structured. In search of the etiopathogenesis of the several
psychic disorders, Freud was led from the “pure” trauma to the formulation of the
concept of the traumatic state. The role of the primary psychic trauma and its
correlation with the pathogenesis of serious psychic disorders has been the subject
matter of many psychoanalysts, starting with Freud (Studies on Hysteria, 1895) and
Ferenczi (The Unwelcome child and His Death Instinct, 1929). The special traumatic
situation under examination is that of the unwelcome child as presented in Ferenczi's
article “The Unwelcome child and His Death Instinct”, 1929. The main idea of the
article is that the unwelcome children are characterised by lack of desire to live, they
have a sense of emptiness, inferiority feelings, low self esteem and a tendency
towards physical illness, meaning that they die easily and willingly, because since
very early in their life they have experienced the conscious and unconscious signs of
indifference from their mothers. Freud has stressed that the human psychic is
governed by a basic conflict between the life instinct and the death instinct, where
both instincts are intertwined in different proportions, creating a relevant balance in
the psychic (1920). The purpose of the life instinct is to create connections, greater
units, whereas the purpose of the death instinct is the deconnection, the return to the
inorganic state. Andre Green points out the disobjectalising function of death instinct
in the sense of unbinding. He believes that the most characteristic aspect of the death
instinct destructability is the withdrawal of the investment (1999). The investment of
oneself can result from the not investment of the unwelcome child by its object.
The aim of the present study is to highlight the correlation between the lack of
desire for a child or the non binding as a primary psychic trauma and the resulting
dominance of the several aspects of the death instinct in the child's psychic. The lack
of binding causes an imbalance in the intrication of the two instincts, as a
consequence of which the several aspects of the death instinct dominate in the
person's psyche. The psychic of a person is born in the psychic of the parents, that is
in their phantasy, their desire to have a child, (Schechter S.D. 2017). Trauma is not
only induced by actions or facts, but also by the parents' desires or the lack of them,
thus by the lack of investment to the infant. It is an investment trauma which results from the mother's psychic procedures, from not being recognised by the other person.
A “traumatic state” found in the parents' phantasies before the child's conception and
the way in which this initial lack of desire of binding as well as the destructability will
appear in a psychoanalytic procedure. We will examine the way in which all this is
reproduced both in therapy, the transference – counter transference, and in the
person's everyday relationships.
It is a conceptual study of the term “unwelcome child” as an early psychic
trauma. It is based mainly on the literature reviews (scientific articles, books) and on
clinical case material, where the interrelation of the concepts under examination is
highlighted through the therapy and mainly at the beginning of therapy, aiming at
investigating the potential connection between the lack of desire and the death instict
in order to reach some conclusions. The present study aims at showing, through the
clinical material, how useful the knowledge of these concepts is and how they interact
in order to cause a “trauma”.
Main subject category:
Health Sciences
Keywords:
Trauma, Lack of desire, Lack of binding, Negative, Death instinct
Index:
No
Number of index pages:
0
Contains images:
No
Number of references:
58
Number of pages:
60
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