Psychoanalytic Social Work

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Assessing the Impact of Father-Absence from a

Psychoanalytic Perspective

Kim A. Jones PhD, LCSW

To cite this article: Kim A. Jones PhD, LCSW (2007) Assessing the Impact of Father-Absence
from a Psychoanalytic Perspective, Psychoanalytic Social Work, 14:1, 43-58, DOI: 10.1300/
J032v14n01_03

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 Assessing the Impact of Father-Absence
from a Psychoanalytic Perspective
Kim A. Jones

ABSTRACT. This article examines the role of father and effects of his
absence within the context of psychoanalytic theory. The article begins
by exploring some of the earliest psychoanalytic writings on the father
and his role in child development. The literature describing the effects of
father-loss/absence from a developmental perspective is then presented
within the framework of the four central psychologies of drive/structural
theory, ego psychology, object relations theory and self psychology.
Treatment implications are then discussed in regard to five central areas
of assessment: (1) the quality and nature of attachment to father; (2) fa-
ther’s role during the first and second separation-individuation; (3) Oe-
dipal issues; (4) father’s capacity to have functioned as an important
selfobject; and (5) the nature and quality of the paternal representation.
A case is then presented followed by a discussion of the clinical implica-
tions when assessing father-child dynamics. The article concludes by
outlining societal trends that elevate the importance of understanding
the father’s role in child development and the necessity for therapists to
competently assess paternally based issues that clients bring to treat-
ment. doi:10.1300/J032v14n01_03 [Article copies available for a fee from The
Haworth Document Delivery Service: 1-800-HAWORTH. E-mail address:
<docdelivery@haworthpress.com> Website: <http://www.HaworthPress.com>
© 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.]

Kim A. Jones, PhD, LCSW, is Associate Professor, 2801 University of Arkansas,

Little Rock, School of Social Work, 2801 S. University, Little Rock, AR 72204
(E-mail: kajones@ualr.edu).
The author would like to thank Tracy Allred for her helpful contributions to this
paper.
Psychoanalytic Social Work, Vol. 14(1) 2007
Available online at http://psw.haworthpress.com
 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1300/J032v14n01_03 43
44 PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL WORK

KEYWORDS. Role of father, psychoanalytic theory and father, child-

father relations

INTRODUCTION

In 1900, Freud wrote that the loss of one’s father is the single greatest
loss a person can experience. Some of the earliest psychoanalytic writ-
ings on the effects of father-absence emerged from Anna Freud and
Dorothy Burlingham’s observational work during World War II in
England’s Hampstead Nurseries. They observed that in fantasy, the
mental images of the parents, particularly that of the father, who was the
parent away most often, “undergo great changes compared with the real
parent in the child’s past” (Freud & Burlingham, 1943, p. 61). It was
noted that these fantasies developed in relation to the father, but were
not directly due to the father’s influence (Freud & Burlingham, 1973). In
fantasy, the paternal images “seemed better, bigger, richer, more gener-
ous and more tolerant than they have ever been” (Freud & Burlingham,
1943, p. 61). Many of the boys who possessed such an idealized paternal
image had in fact never even seen their fathers in reality. Freud and
Burlingham suspected that they acquired the paternal representation
from other nursery children who had gone home and interacted with
their fathers and then returned to “spread the conception of the father”
through the rest of the group of youngsters (Freud & Burlingham, 1973,
p. 658). As the missing, or in some cases, dead father, was idealized,
Freud and Burlingham also observed a specific repression of any nega-
tive feelings toward the father. They noted that both the idealization and
the warding off of negative affect “are used largely to embellish and
maintain the positive side of the child-parent relationship” (Freud &
Burlingham, 1943, p. 73).

THE ROLE OF FATHER

The impact of father loss or absence can best be understood within

the context of the father’s role in child development. The role of father,
from a psychoanalytic perspective, was first described by Sigmund
Freud, who thought the father played an important role in both the
pre-Oedipal and Oedipal phases of child development. Freud suggested
that the development of a loving attachment to the father, most particu-
larly for boys, was crucial for both healthy development and resolution
 Kim A. Jones 45

of the Oedipal stage. Freud hypothesized that boys experienced the father
as a competitor and prohibitor of incestuous sexual impulses, an object
of envy and hate, and someone who provokes guilt and fear (Freud,
1921). As Dorothy Burlingham (1973) pointed out, Freud also saw the
father more positively–as a protector, and that of a “great” and “God-
like” being that is idealized by the small child.
Up until the early 1940s, post-Freudian notions of the father-child re-
lationship focused primarily on the father’s role during the Oedipal pe-
riod. During the mid-1970s and early 1980s, a number of papers and
books on fathering began to appear in the literature, mainly from Amer-
ican writers. In 1979, Ross referred to fathers as the “forgotten parent,”
in the psychoanalytic literature. In the last several decades, proponents
of ego psychology, object relations theory, and self psychology have
expanded the role of the father in child development. Within the context
of these theoretical frameworks, the father is seen as an attachment fig-
ure in his own right (Abelin, 1971, 1975; Lamb, 1997); facilitator of
both the first and second separation-individuation period (Blos, 1967,
1984, 1985, 1987; Mahler, 1968; Mahler & Gosliner, 1955; Mahler &
McDevitt, 1968; Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975); as an internalized
other (Davids, 2002; Fairbairn, 1941, 1944, 1952, 1958, 1968); and as a
selfobject (Kohut, 1971, 1977, 1984). The father is also seen as aiding
in the modulation of libidinal and aggressive drives (Herzog, 1980,
2001); tempering the ambivalence generated within the mother-child
bond (Winnicott, 1964); as a container for projected anxiety that origi-
nates in the mother-infant relationship (Davids, 2002); and as originator
of triadic psychic capacities (Abelin, 1971, 1975).

FATHER LOSS
FROM A PSYCHOANALYTIC PERSPECTIVE

For the past 60 years, the psychoanalytic literature on father-absence

has tended to look at the effects of loss within a developmental frame-
work and from the perspective of the four central psychologies: drive-
structural theory; ego psychology; object relations theory; and self
psychology. Research has tended to focus on the developmental level
attained by the child at the time of the loss and how the loss impacts cog-
nitive, integrative, structural, and defensive capacities (Krueger, 1983;
Trunnell, 1968).
Infancy and early childhood. Loss or absence of the father was thought
to have negative consequences for the child as early as the prenatal period
46 PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL WORK

and is associated with later behavioral problems (Huttunen & Niskanen,

1978). Loss of father in the first year of life has the potential to impact the
mother and her ability to be fully immersed with the infant, which may in
turn disrupt the optimal need gratification/frustration rhythm. For the in-
fant, this alteration in attachment may then lead to impaired development
of self and object differentiation, reality testing, frustration-tolerance and
the capacity for basic trust and confidence, and disrupt the proceeding
tasks of separation-individuation (Newman & Schwam, 1979; Santrock,
1970; Trunnell, 1968). It was also thought that loss of father before the
age of two could potentially have profound effects upon narcissistic de-
velopment (Burgner, 1985; Krueger, 1983).
Psychoanalytic investigators, in describing the emotional and psy-
chological manifestations related to father-loss/absence before the age of
five, have noted such themes as heightened fears involving object loss
and abandonment, combined with an intensified wish for maternal close-
ness (Burgner, 1985). Father loss was also thought to stimulate fears in
regard to the normative regressive process that occurs during sleep, as
well as intense anxieties in relation to drive discharge (Herzog, 1980).
Eva Seligman (1982) worked with several adult patients who de-
scribed themselves as “half alive.” A common theme among these
patients was childhood loss of father. Seligman hypothesized that not
having a father present disrupted the normative separation-individua-
tion process and left them fixated at a pre-Oedipal level of development.
A prominent theme that emerged during the analysis of these patients was
the degree and intensity of both abandonment and engulfment anxiety,
which left them overly dependent upon their mothers. Seligman thought
that the father played an essential role in mediating the transition from
“the womb to the world” (p. 10).
The Oedipal period. Psychoanalytic research regarding the Oedipal
period has tended to focus on the impact of father loss on males. With-
out the presence of the father, the boy may be inhibited in the develop-
ment of certain perceptions, reality testing and the acceleration of
sexual fantasies. The normal age-specific competitive feelings, fears,
and humiliations, with which the boy must learn to cope, have no reality
figure with whom to work them out, and thus may become highly dis-
torted (Neubauer, 1960). Ferenczi (1940) emphasized a fixation on the
lost father in early histories of homosexual males. This condition, he
thought, was due to the absence of the otherwise unavoidable conflicts
between father and son, while Aichorn (1925) was impressed with the
inadequate ego-ideal of the father-absent boy.
 Kim A. Jones 47

Latency through adolescence. Loss of father during latency has shown

to cause a regression to the Oedipal level of psychosexual develop-
ment (Gauthier, 1965), and to deprive the child of a sense of mastery and
industry, which comes from development of skills and talents through
modeling and identification with the father. As in earlier phases of devel-
opment, loss at this stage may also result in an over-idealization of the pa-
ternal representation, which prevents a later deidealization and normative
gradual withdrawal of narcissistic cathexis, which is required for the ac-
quisition of structure forming internalizations and may result in a narcis-
sistic fixation in addition to delayed entry into the peer group (Kohut,
1971; Newman & Schwam, 1979). Kohut postulated that this pattern of
events is not necessarily pathological in that “such fantasies . . . may be
formed, consciously elaborated, and temporarily clung to in response to
an external deprivation which requires the postponement of a develop-
mental task” (pp. 83-84).
The ongoing longitudinal work of Judith Wallerstein and Joan Kelly
provide the most detailed impact of father loss during the period of la-
tency-adolescence (Wallerstein & Kelly, 1974, 1976, 1979, 1980, 1984,
1987, 1989, 2000). Their original study involved a non-clinical popula-
tion of 60 divorcing families, with 131 children between the ages of
two-and-one-half and eighteen years of age at the time of the marital sep-
aration. The children in the early latency age group, which covered an age
range of five-and-one-half through eight years of age, experienced mod-
erate levels of depression, a preoccupation with the loss of father, com-
bined with intense grieving and longing for his return and associated his
leaving with rejection (Wallerstein, 1987). Children in the older latency
age group (nine through twelve) showed intense anger at one or both par-
ents and were more likely to develop somatic symptoms, a shaken sense
of identity, and a regression in super-ego controls (Wallerstein & Kelly,
1976, 1980). For the adolescent group, Wallerstein and Kelly noted
that the normative developmental task of separation-individuation was
greatly altered in response to the marital separation and ensuing changes
in family structure and perceptions of parents.
At the 10-year follow-up, the preschool children in the original study
had reached early adolescence. At the time of the marital break, these
children were between two-and-one-half and six years of age. They
had experienced the marital rupture with intense emotional pain, need-
iness, a high level of regression, acute separation anxiety, and fears of
abandonment (Wallerstein, 1984). At the 18-month follow-up, these
children, especially the boys, had deteriorated even further. In relation
to the father, Wallerstein noted, that “Whether absent or visiting regu-
48 PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL WORK

larly or erratically, whether living three blocks away or in a distant state,

the noncustodial father remained a significant psychological presence
in the lives of these children” (Wallerstein, 1984, p. 454). When they
lacked information regarding the father, these children constructed an
image of father, one suitable to their developmental needs at the time.
The frequency of visits over the years was not directly linked to the
child’s attachment to father. In fact, some of the strongest feelings asso-
ciated with father were expressed by those children who saw him the
least. A reoccurring theme for the latency age children at the 10-year
follow-up was again the loss of father. As in the younger group, the fa-
ther remained a significant psychological presence in their lives. In
many instances there existed no apparent link between the father for
whom they yearned and the actual father.
Wallerstein concluded from these and other findings that “there is ev-
idence . . . that the need for the father as a benign image, if not a real
presence, increased during the adolescent years” (Wallerstein, 1987,
p. 207). A link was also established between the relationship with father
and overall psychological adjustment with both boys and girls. How-
ever, the quality of the father-child relationship was significantly re-
lated to good or poor psychological outcome in boys only. Wallerstein
added that “a boy’s perceptions of his father’s feelings toward him, and
his need for affirmation and encouragement from his father, appeared
to be of critical significance at this time” (p. 208). She linked this in-
creased need for father during this period as stemming directly from the
boy’s need to maintain psychological distance from mother and related
engulfment fears, as well as the need for a figure of identification and
his supportive role in entering the outside world.
Wallerstein conducted a 25-year follow-up that included participants
of the original study. In this follow-up Wallerstein and her coauthors
(2000) interviewed several adult children of divorce and found the ef-
fects of divorce were indeed long lasting. Wallerstein noted, “The
impact of divorce hits them most cruelly as they go in search of love,
sexual intimacy, and commitment” (p. 299). This group also carried in-
tense anxiety into adulthood about relationship and intimacy issues in
addition to anger at parents, most particularly fathers, who were seen as
“selfish and faithless” (p. 300). Wallerstein found with few exceptions,
fathers in divorced families did not have close connections with their
children, especially their sons. Wallerstein added that this pattern “stood
in marked contrast to fathers and sons from intact families, who tended
to grow closer as the years went by” (p. 301).
 Kim A. Jones 49

TREATMENT CONSIDERATIONS

Whereas both drive theory and ego psychology have emphasized the
role of father in child development, traditional object relations theory,
both the American and British schools, has tended to overfocus on the
mother-child relationship, resulting in an overemphasis on maternal
contributions to both healthy and pathological development. Addition-
ally, there has been the timeworn tendency to blame mothers for child
psychopathology in both research and practice, while minimizing or
completely ignoring the contributions fathers make (Phares, 1997).
An optimal practice approach is one that encompasses knowledge of
both maternal and paternal contributions to development and ultimate
character formation. When assessing paternally based issues, the clinician
should be familiar with the unique contributions fathers make to overall
psychic development. It is from this position that an assessment can be
made as to whether the patient is struggling with distortions or manifes-
tations of deprivation as this relates to the father and his functions.
Drawing from the psychoanalytic literature, there are generally five
central areas, or domains, to consider in regard to father; they include
(1) the quality and nature of attachment to father; (2) father’s role during
the first and second separation-individuation, which includes father’s
capacity to have acted as a container for anxiety and regulator of ambiv-
alence; (3) Oedipal issues, which include the nature of the child’s trian-
gular relationship with mother and father, in addition to modulation of
aggressive and libidinal drives; (4) father’s capacity to have functioned
as an important selfobject; and (5) the nature and quality of the paternal
representation.
Each of the five domains correspond to paternally based functions
that if not present, can eventuate in deficits or distortions that are often-
times compensated for in pathological and dysfunctional ways. The
model presented here suggests that the clinician be familiar enough with
the literature surrounding the five domains to be able to focus in on the
most salient area(s) that best organizes the clinical material.

CASE EXAMPLE

The case involves a 14-year-old boy named Sam, who grew up having
had little contact with his father. Sam’s biological mother and father di-
vorced when he was a little over two years of age. Up until the time of
the divorce, Sam was described as a “daddy’s boy” by his mother.
50 PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL WORK

Shortly after the divorce Sam’s behavior took a turn for the worse: he
became extremely aggressive and destructive. An example of how
out-of-control Sam could become occurred one evening when he picked
up a baseball bat and almost completely destroyed his room. By age
seven Sam’s aggression had escalated even further: he was now hitting
and biting himself, spitting, cursing, and destroying furniture in the
house. Sam had also threatened to kill himself by cutting his wrist. Even
though Sam’s mother was justified in leaving his father because he
drank excessively and couldn’t hold down a job, still she was left with
overwhelming guilt for having caused Sam’s loss.
At age eight Sam’s mother remarried and his violence worsened to
the point where mother was forced to admit him to a local psychiatric
unit. At this juncture Sam was hitting and kicking his mother and stepfa-
ther, and at one point threatened to kill them both. Sam’s threat to kill
himself was also an ongoing theme. Sam never really felt attached to his
stepfather, even though there were times when stepfather attempted to
reach out to him. Sam’s behavior at home and how he was being man-
aged by mother provoked several arguments between Sam’s mother and
stepfather and, after about one year of being married, they divorced.
Sam’s relationship with his mother remained extremely conflicted
and turbulent. Sam would typically go through periods of pushing mother
away, saying he “hated” her and wished her dead, followed by desperate
attempts to regain a connection to her. Sam’s most potent way of regain-
ing the connection to mother was to cut himself, or threaten to harm
himself in some way. Such threats were sure to elicit her guilt and a
more caring and concerned response. With the connection reestab-
lished, Sam’s relationship with his mother briefly improved. However,
the least amount of frustration would send the cycle back into motion
and Sam would once again direct his hatred and rage toward mother.
When Sam was 10, his mother decided to send him on a visit to see
his father, who by this time lived in another state. Up until this point in
time, Sam had spoken with and seen his father only sporadically. Sam’s
father was unemployed and abused alcohol and drugs on a daily basis.
On the visit Sam and his father spent their week together doing what
they both loved best–working on old cars. Following Sam’s return
home his behavior quickly deteriorated and he was once again hospital-
ized for out-of-control and aggressive behavior. When Sam was 11, his
mother remarried for a third time. Once again Sam’s behavior escalated:
He began destroying items in the house, mutilating himself with broken
glass, arguing with and repeatedly defying his new stepfather. Sam was
once again admitted to an area psychiatric hospital. During this admission
 Kim A. Jones 51

the therapist who was assigned to Sam and his family brought up the issue
of Sam’s relationship with his stepfather and biological father. Sam told
the therapist that his stepfather was “trying to take my place,” which he
greatly resented. He also accused the stepfather of having abused him.
However, there was no evidence or substantiation of such abuse. In fact,
his current stepfather was being very patient with Sam, and like his first
stepfather, was attempting to engage him. The stepfather was becoming
increasingly frustrated with how Sam so easily manipulated his mother’s
guilt and argued with Sam’s mother over how to better manage him.
Mother’s relationship with Sam’s second stepfather, as had been the case
with the first stepfather, became increasingly strained by the chaotic
home environment. In later sessions, Sam contradicted his stories about
abuse and then denied any abuse had even occurred.
Sam was reluctant to speak poorly of his biological father, even
though his mother thought that deep inside Sam was angry with him. In-
stead, Sam talked about how much he enjoyed working on cars with his
father and how he wanted to become a mechanic someday. Mother re-
ported that, even from an early age, Sam had always had a love for cars,
and that playing with cars or looking at pictures of them in a magazine,
always seemed to calm him down. The worst punishment for Sam was
having his mother take his cars away from him. As therapy proceeded,
Sam was able to gradually reveal his anger and disappointment with his
father. He even wrote his father a letter that revealed how disappointed
and angry he was in regard to their relationship. However, Sam could
not send the letter: He feared his father would never speak to him again.
As Sam’s anger toward his father surfaced, his aggressive behavior de-
creased. He spent the next several sessions struggling with his inner
dread of becoming just like his father.
As therapy progressed Sam became increasingly comfortable with
discussing his anger and disappointment with regard to his father. He no
longer made excuses for his father’s shortcomings and was starting to
take more responsibility for his own actions and learning more effective
ways of managing his feelings and impulses.
This case exemplifies the importance of assessing the impact of the
missing or absent father. In regard to the five above-mentioned domains,
it is apparent that attachment and separation-individuation issues, along
with the internalized object representation of Sam’s father vis-à-vis his
own internalized representation of self, seem most pertinent. Sam’s
father left the family when he was two years of age–a point at which
separation-individuation issues are at a crises level (Mahler, Pine, &
Bergman, 1975). According to Mahler, rapprochement is marked by an
52 PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL WORK

ever-increasing awareness of separateness that results in heightened feel-

ings of vulnerability, helplessness, and fear of object loss. The rapproche-
ment crisis involves a conflict between the wish to be separate, alongside
a wish to have one’s needs met magically without awareness that help ema-
nates from without. The child, during this phase, clamors for omnipotent
control, experiences intense separation anxiety, and alternates between the
need for closeness and autonomy. Rapprochement can be a period of in-
tense mood swings, general dissatisfaction, and temper tantrums.
Interestingly, studies have shown that a boy will typically turn to his
father as a preferred attachment figure during this period, providing the
father is present and available (Abelin, 1975; Lamb, 1997). Mahler saw
the father as becoming an important object during the rapprochement
subphase, whereby the toddler forms an inner image of the father that is
often idealized (Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975). Abelin proposed that
during this period, the father represents a “stable island of external real-
ity,” and is experienced as a “less ambivalent alternative,” vis-à-vis the
mother (Abelin, 1975, pp. 243-244). Both Mahler and Abelin thought
that a stable image of the father was necessary for a healthy resolution
of the ambivalence associated with the rapprochement subphase.
In optimal situations, the emotional and behavioral manifestations of
rapprochement will subside as the child finds an optimal distance from
the mother and resolves the conflicts associated with this phase. How-
ever, left unresolved, the contrasting tendencies of rapprochement will
not be internalized, which leaves the child prone to excessive separation
anxiety, depression, demandingness, envy, possessiveness, and temper
outburst. Many of these manifestations are indications that the child has
split the object world into “good” and “bad,” which disrupts the child’s
ability to achieve what Mahler referred to as “libidinal object con-
stancy.” Achieving constancy of the object encompasses, in part, the
ability to maintain the inner representation of the object in its absence,
in addition to the capacity to unify the “good” and “bad” aspects of the
object into one whole representation. A central component of this pro-
cess is constructing a unified self-representation that becomes “demar-
cated from a blended and integrated object representation” (Mahler,
Pine, & Bergman, 1975, p. 108).
Drawing from what is known about Sam’s early childhood, it is
likely that he was attached to his father, evidenced by his mother having
referred to him as a “daddy’s boy.” However, Sam’s normative turn to
his father as a “less ambivalent alternative” (Abelin, 1975, p. 244), was
ended prematurely when father left the family. It was at this juncture
that his behavior and his relationship with his mother deteriorated and
 Kim A. Jones 53

he became violent and out-of-control. There may have been several rea-
sons behind Sam’s regression; however, it cannot be ruled out how the
loss of his father may have exacerbated the emotional and behavioral
manifestations of the rapprochement crisis–his father, as an “external
island of reality,” had been pulled out from under him. Further evidence
of unresolved rapprochement issues can then be seen in the pattern of
interaction Sam engaged in with his mother, and how he reacted each
time his mother remarried: he became out-of-control and violent, and at
one point even said his stepfather was “trying to take my place.”
As Sam was unable to successfully negotiate the rapprochement
crisis and the powerful affects associated with this phase, he resorted to
splitting as a principle defense. Kernberg (1976) hypothesized that
splitting is geared toward keeping apart introjections and identifications
of opposite quality: the ideal, good self, and object representations are
protected from “contamination,” by bad self and object representations
(p. 67). The aggression connected to the “bad” self and object represen-
tations can be projected outward onto others who then become threaten-
ing, bad external objects that must be controlled, and/or directed toward
the self (Kernberg, 1966; Mahler, 1966). Sam directed his aggression
both inward upon himself and outwardly toward his mother and each
stepfather that entered his life.
Freud and Burlingham’s (1943, 1973) observational studies showed
that developing an idealization of an absent father can serve develop-
mental purposes. Through this process, children create intrapsychically
that which is missing in their reality-based lives. Along similar lines
Nagera (1970) and Wolfenstein (1966) hypothesized that the child
holds onto, or actively creates in fantasy, the object that is missing, but
still needed. Burgner (1985) postulated that the idealized father repre-
sentation is created out of loss and functions to keep both the object and
the self intact. Finally, Nunberg (1955) thought the idealized paternal
representation acted as a bridge to an attachment to a real man who
could become a father figure.
Other psychoanalytic writers have shed light on the hazards involved
in the formation of an idealized image of father. Krueger (1983), for ex-
ample, thought that fixation on an object that is not real may hinder the in-
ternalization of more enduring psychic structures, while Altschul (1968)
saw this form of idealization as robbing the ego of the necessary energies
needed for age-specific developmental tasks. Newman and Schwam
(1979) posed the idea that such idealizations never go through the normal
deidealization phase, which acts to disrupt the internalization of narcissis-
tic structures and hinders the capacity to regulate self-esteem.
54 PSYCHOANALYTIC SOCIAL WORK

Sam clearly created an idealized image of his missing father. When

considering the mixed reviews of such an idealization within the context
of psychoanalytic theory, it is important to assess the impact of this ideal-
ization on his functioning and overall development. It is possible that
Sam initially coped with the sudden loss of his father by creating an im-
age that substituted for the father that had been present. Sam was attached
to his father and very much needed his father at such a critical phase in his
life. It is thus likely that the idealization, at least initially, served him de-
velopmentally. However, preserving the ideal father, primarily through
the mechanism of splitting, resulted in (1) continuous disruptions due to
the relational and affective instability splitting causes; (2) the inability to
become attached to his stepfathers (or other men in his life) due to the si-
multaneous preservation of the “good” internal father and projection of
the “bad” internal father onto each stepfather; and (3) the identity confu-
sion Sam experienced as a result of not achieving object constancy, par-
ticularly the lack of integration of self and object images in regard to
father–as evidenced by his fear of becoming like father.

TRANSFERENCE
AND COUNTERTRANSFERENCE ISSUES

In working with patients, it is important to consider both maternal

and paternal dynamics, as both pertain to transference and counter-
transference manifestations. Patients who enter treatment with paternal
deficits and/or distortions may unconsciously project these onto the
therapist. It is therefore important for therapists to recognize the pater-
nal roots of such clinical manifestations. The patient might, for exam-
ple, experience the therapist (male or female) as an idealized or overly
critical and harsh paternal figure. In other instances the patient might
expect the therapist to meet unmet paternally based needs. Understand-
ing the origins of these distortions and deficits is crucial in developing a
sound working alliance with the patient. It is equally important for ther-
apists to understand and be aware of issues as they relate to their own
fathers and how these emerge when working with certain clients.

CONCLUSION

Regardless of whether one is working with a child, adolescent or

adult, fully assessing each of the five domains described earlier can act
 Kim A. Jones 55

to guide the therapist in determining the degree to which paternal dy-

namics, deprivations and/or distortions have influenced the reasons for
which the patient is seeking help. Patients who come to treatment for
difficulties in any of these domains may present with a variety of is-
sues–self-esteem, intimacy, behavioral and affective control, identity
issues, inhibitions–that may have their roots in either the direct father-
child relationship, or its absence.
The importance of becoming familiar with the unique contributions fa-
thers make in their children’s growth and development is made clear by
past and current societal trends. It is commonly known that approxi-
mately half of all marriages end in divorce and perhaps less commonly
known, that one-third of all children under the age of 18 years live apart
from their biological fathers. In 1995, one-third of all births were to un-
married women (Dudley & Stone, 2001). As an outcome of these trends,
America has been referred to as a “fatherless nation” (Blankenhorn,
1995).
In spite of these long-standing trends, and some evidence of a re-
newed interest in fathers, there remains “no comprehensive and cohe-
sive body of theory about fatherhood in the psychoanalytic literature”
(Trowell & Etchegoyen, 2002, p. 33). One factor that makes such a
comprehensive theory difficult is the ever-changing role fathers have
occupied over the centuries (see Abramovitch, 1997). For these rea-
sons, it is important that we continue to make strides in the advancement
of theory as it relates to the role of the father, and the use of this knowl-
edge to inform our practice with those who come for help around diffi-
culties that emanate from their relationships with their fathers.

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Manuscript Submitted: 03/21/06

Final Revision Received: 07/31/06

doi:10.1300/J032v14n01_03