The Dead Daughter Phenomenon

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Part 1. "Dead" mother

The hand that rocks the cradle

rules the world …

The relationship with the mother can

be harmonious, but can be difficult

or hostile.

But they never

are not neutral.

Our internal mental functions are derived from interpersonal relationships. Our I appears thanks to the Other. And here, first of all, we are talking about significant Others, of course, the most important of which are the parents of the child. Most of the basic needs of the child are directed towards the parents. Parents are the “soil” on which a new sprout of life appears, and its further growth will largely depend on its quality. I will not consider all parent-child relationships, but only mother-daughter relationships that lead to the formation of a dead daughter complex. Specifically, this article will focus on the mother and her role in the psychological birth of a child in general and a daughter in particular.

MOTHER FUNCTIONS

Physical birth is the very first and most important mothering function for a baby. But this is far from its only function. The physical separation of the child from the mother does not mean breaking the bond between them. This “mother-child” bond, although it weakens over time, always persists for life.

Another, no less important function of the mother is her direct participation in the psychological birth of the child. Obviously, in order for the birth of a child to take place, the mother herself must be alive. The foregoing fully applies to both physical and psychological birth. For a psychological birth to take place, the mother must herself be psychologically alive.

And here we are faced with some difficulty associated with the definition of the concept of psychological life-death. As for the signs of physical life-death, everything is more or less clear with this. When it comes to psychological life-death and their criteria, then everything is not so clear. It is only obvious that these phenomena are different: you can be physically alive, but psychologically dead, “as if alive”.

The definition of this phenomenon and its criteria in many respects will be devoted to the cycle of my articles. In the meantime, let us return to the above stated idea that in order for the psychological birth of a child to take place, his mother herself must be psychologically alive. And one more important thesis: psychological birth is not a one-time act, compared to physical birth. I will consider three such key moments in a child's life, linking them with the emergence of new forms of identity in him.

"DEAD" MOTHER

The idea of a dead mother in psychology is not new. For the first time this phenomenon was described by the French psychoanalyst Andre Green, who called it the complex of the dead mother. He describes such a mother as being self-absorbed, physically but not emotionally close to the child. This is a mother who remains alive physically, but she is dead psychologically, because for one reason or another she fell into depression (for example, due to the death of a child, relative, close friend, or any other object greatly loved by the mother); or it may be the so-called depression of disappointment due to events that occur in their own family or in the family of parents (betrayal of a husband, experiencing a divorce, forced termination of pregnancy, violence, humiliation, etc.).

I think that the phenomenon of the dead mother is much broader than that considered by Green. "Dead mother complex" … The essence of such a mother, in my opinion, is her inability to satisfy some vital need in a certain period of the child's development, which leads to the impossibility of giving birth to new forms of identity and fixing his personal development.

After all, the child's needs in the mother are not limited to his need for emotional contact with her. They (needs) are directly tied to a certain stage of his personal development and the tasks that the child faces at this stage.

Indeed, the need for close emotional-bodily contact is essential for a baby-infant, and the mother's inability to support this need leads to serious problems in his development. Psychoanalysis describes the consequences of frustration of this kind of need, the most serious of which is the phenomenon of hospitalism, described by R. Spitz. I think that the "complex of the dead mother" described by Green is connected precisely with the discussed need of the child.

However, the above-mentioned need is not dominant already for a three-year-old child, and even more so for a teenager. The child at each age stage solves his own specific developmental problems associated with the satisfaction of certain needs. Moreover, there are some common tasks concerning both parents, and each of the parents has its own specific tasks. So, a father, for example, has his own paternal tasks in relation to his son and in relation to his daughter. The above applies equally to maternal tasks. And parents are not always ready to respond to the significant needs of their children due to the deficit of their personal qualities and functions.

In my article, I will focus only on the specific tasks of the mother in relation to her daughter and those maternal deficiencies that lead to problems in the development of the identity of their daughters.

A puncture in the functions of the mother can be both total and local, relating only to the inability to support certain needs of the child. Let me emphasize that we are talking here about the mother's inability, and not about her unwillingness to satisfy the child's need. Such a mother is not able to give what her child needs, since she simply does not have it. Due to her own problems, such a mother is unable to support the psychological development goals of her daughter. Moreover, precisely those tasks that she could not solve herself at a certain stage of her own development in relations with her mother.

Obviously, the "dead mother" is a mother with psychological problems. These can be a high level of anxiety, fear of life, fear of death (withering of physical beauty), low self-esteem, rejection of one's femininity, sexuality. Often a mother in a relationship with her daughter uses her to solve her problematic life tasks.

A dead mother is a mother who frustrates a need that is significant for the development of a child and is unable to support his new emerging identity

STAGES OF PSYCHOLOGICAL BIRTH

I distinguish a typology of psychological birth based on three important points in the development of a child:

• The main task of development.
• Leading need.
• Identity formation stage.

The main task of development is the task that a child needs to solve at a specific age stage for the birth of a new identity. Its solution directly depends on the possibility of meeting a certain interpersonal need. Thus, it is possible to identify the key stages in the development of the child, which will be characterized by a specific combination of tasks-needs, within which the possibility of the birth of a new I or a new identity appears.

I distinguish three such key stages in the formation of a new identity, comparable in importance to a new psychological birth.

Stage 1. Vital identity. (I am). The main task of development is the recognition by the mother of the child's right to life. A child's basic need is the need for acceptance and unconditional love. (Mom, hug me).

Stage 2. Individual identity. (I am so / so). The main task of development is the recognition by the mother of the child's right to individuality. The child's basic need is the need for separation-individuation. (Mom, let me go).

Stage 3. Gender identity. (I am such a man / such a woman). The main task of child development is the recognition by the mother of the right to male / female individuality. The main need for a child is to find self-identity, primarily gender. (Mom, rate me).

The first two steps are universal. Here the mother and father perform similar tasks in the development of the child and are complementary. At these stages, in the absence or deficiency of any maternal function, the father or another family member can compensate for it. At the third stage, the mother and father have specific tasks-functions and they become non-interchangeable.

Below, the proposed typology of "dead" mothers is tied directly to a certain stage in the development of the child's identity.

Rejecting mother unable to accept and love her child unconditionally and therefore does not support the development and birth of his Vital identity - I am.

Holding mother - not able to support the separation of the child and therefore not supporting the development and birth of his Individual identity - I am like that.

Rival mother - unable to support the child's need to find female self-identity, and therefore not supporting the development and birth of the daughter's gender identity - I am such a girl / woman!

To illustrate the types of mothers I have identified, I will turn to fairy tales and describe them using the example of fairy tale characters, in which one can most clearly see the psychological portrait of one of the types and relationships I have identified in the “mother-daughter” pair. Such stories will be the following: "Frost", "Rapunzel", "The Tale of the Dead Princess".

You can read about this in my next article.

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