The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

More documents

Recommendations

Info

that were free of conflict. Usually these concern experiences with nature, which they could enjoy without hurting the mother or making her feel insecure, without reducing her power or endangering her equilibrium. But it is remarkable how these attentive, lively, and sensitive children who can, for example, remember exactly how they discovered the sunlight in bright grass at the age of four, yet at eight might be unable to "notice anything" or to show any curiosity about the pregnant mother or, similarly, were "not at all" jealous at the birth of a sibling. Again, at the age of two, one of them could be left alone while soldiers forced their way into the house and searched it, and she had "been good," suffering this quietly and without crying. They have all developed the art of not experiencing feelings, for a child can only experience his feelings when there is somebody there who accepts him fully, understands and supports him. If that is missing, if the child must risk losing the mother's love, or that of her substitute, then he cannot experience these feelings secretly "just for himself" but fails to experience them at all. But nevertheless . .. something remains. Throughout their later life, these people unconsciously create situations in which these rudimentary feelings may awaken but without the original connection ever becoming clear. The point of this "play," as Jurgen Habermas (1970) called it, can only be deciphered in analysis, when the analyst joins the cast and the intense emotions experienced in the analysis are successfully related to their original situation. Freud described this in 1914 in his work "Recollection, Repetition, and Working Through." Take, for an example, the feeling of being abandoned— not that of the adult, who feels lonely and therefore takes tablets or drugs, goes to the movies, visits friends, or tele- 10
phones "unnecessarily," in order to bridge the gap somehow. No, I mean the original feeling in the small infant, who had none of these chances of distraction and whose communication, verbal or preverbal, did not reach the mother. This was not the case because his mother was bad, but because she herself was narcissistically deprived, dependent on a specific echo from the child that was so essential to her, for she herself was a child in search of an object that could be available to her. However paradoxical this may seem, a child is at the mother's disposal. A child cannot run away from her as her own mother once did. A child can be so brought up that it becomes what she wants it to be. A child can be made to show respect, she can impose her own feelings on him, see herself mirrored in his love and admiration, and feel strong in his presence, but when he becomes too much she can abandon that child to a stranger. The mother can feel herself the center of attention, for her child's eyes follow her everywhere. When a woman had to suppress and repress all these needs in relation to her own mother, they rise from the depth of her unconscious and seek gratification through her own child, however well-educated and well-intentioned she may be, and however much she is aware of what a child needs. The child feels this clearly and very soon forgoes the expression of his own distress. Later, when these feelings of being deserted begin to emerge in the analysis of the adult, they are accompanied by such intensity of pain and despair that it is quite clear that these people could not have survived so much pain. That would only have been possible in an empathic, attentive environment, and this they lacked. The same holds true for emotions connected with the Oedipal drama and the entire drive development of the child. All this had to be warded off. But to say that it was absent 11
Page 3: The Drama of the Gifted Child
Page 6 and 7: A previous version of chapter 1 app
Page 9 and 10: Vantage Point 1990 Almost ten years
Page 11 and 12: Although, understandably enough, I
Page 13 and 14: Preface We live in a culture that e
Page 15 and 16: of child abuse. Had just one person
Page 17: ecognizing the absurdity of what th
Page 20 and 21: ification. On top of all this, the
Page 22 and 23: them), if one cannot love oneself a
Page 25: The Drama of the Gifted Child
Page 28 and 29: yet, for many people the truth is s
Page 30 and 31: ing, general attitudes, these peopl
Page 32 and 33: • The most appropriate objects fo
Page 36 and 37: would be a denial of the empirical
Page 38 and 39: terest. The parents have found in t
Page 40 and 41: that he killed a child thirty years
Page 42 and 43: there is most acting out. The patie
Page 44 and 45: had not been able to give her child
Page 46 and 47: The Psychoanalyst's Situation It is
Page 48 and 49: e found beyond the deep ambivalence
Page 50 and 51: may be his secret delusion, a secre
Page 52 and 53: tention as our patients usually do,
Page 54 and 55: Chapter 2 Depression and Grandiosit
Page 56 and 57: iotic phase) but also after the gra
Page 58 and 59: conditions), and the child could de
Page 60 and 61: If the child's demands become too g
Page 62 and 63: ceptional capacity for suffering. P
Page 64 and 65: neighborhood. They therefore made s
Page 66 and 67: is not allowed to be what he really
Page 68 and 69: 3. Continuous performance of outsta
Page 70 and 71: an absolutely essential adaptation
Page 72 and 73: eader's letter in which the tragic
Page 74 and 75: neither the grandiose nor the depre
Page 76 and 77: can be experienced, insight and ass
Page 78 and 79: (holding) empathic environment. Win
Page 80 and 81: to formulate connections that the p
Page 82 and 83: strate to the patient that "his hop
Page 84 and 85:
that resist this adaptation. In old
Page 86 and 87:
Points of Contact with Some Theorie
Page 88 and 89:
Chapter 3 The Vicious Circle of Con
Page 90 and 91:
finished his ice cream, he gave the
Page 92 and 93:
een caught at night outside the loc
Page 94 and 95:
children are aware of this situatio
Page 96 and 97:
about his own childhood, which he d
Page 98 and 99:
ment of their children. What are we
Page 100 and 101:
If we want to avoid the unconscious
Page 102 and 103:
ference feelings and his own childi
Page 104 and 105:
• The hope that with this birth t
Page 106 and 107:
self—to show himself to the world
Page 108 and 109:
PERPETUATION OF CONTEMPT IN PERVERS
Page 110 and 111:
horrified eyes, and this clearly em
Page 112 and 113:
pulses, for he does not allow the c
Page 114 and 115:
dramas, nor pangs of conscience whe
Page 116 and 117:
"the others," classify, group, and
Page 118 and 119:
sexual satisfactions, whereas the c
Page 120 and 121:
puberty also had to live out his fa
Page 122 and 123:
the 21st of January to the 5th of J
Page 124 and 125:
through experience, not merely corr
Page 126 and 127:
ecause of their very nature, inacce
Page 128 and 129:
course of analysis it can then be s
Page 130 and 131:
flicts had absolutely no effect, th
Page 132 and 133:
not so clever and quick (for instan
Page 134 and 135:
that their teacher once had and was
Page 136 and 137:
the history of his childhood and th
Page 139 and 140:
Works Cited Abraham, K. 1960 (orig.
Page 141 and 142:
Index abandonment, 10-14, 79 Abraha
show all

The Drama of the Gifted Child (The Search for the True Self)

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?