Morton Chethik

Work with Parents: Treatment of the Parent-Child Relationship

Abstract Even when the child is the primary patient, treatment of the parent-child relationship is important. The technique of this aspect of the treatment goes beyond the usual supportive and educational measures used in parent guidance. The unconscious or preconscious meanings a child has for the parents are clarified. Such meanings include identification of a child as the bad part of oneself, or as a feared sibling.

Developmental Arrest Following Divorce: The Role of Therapist As a Developmental Facilitator

Abstract Children of divorced parents suffer significant developmental arrests as a result of the absence of a parent who normally serves as a facilitator of development. A special role for the therapist as a developmental facilitator and surrogate parent within the psychotherapy is described.

The defiant ones: A common form of character pathology in children

The paper focuses on a common kind of childhood psychopathology that is often misdiagnosed as incorrigibly delinquent and psychopathic. Many children with a chronic history of defiance and antisocial behavior are struggling with intense internal conflicts. The etiology and dynamics of these youngsters, as well as the treatment implications and techniques, are discussed.

Impact of divorce on children: Vicissitudes and therapeutic implications of the reconciliation fantasy

In our work with children of divorce, we have noted that the relinquishing of the parental unit as it serves the child’s environmental and internal needs is a highly complex and painful process. Parental objects serve important internal, as well as external functions, and the loss of continuity in the parental relationship can serve as a “developmental interference”. After a divorce has occurred, a child may continue to have a relationship with both the custodial and noncustodial parent; however, there is inevitably a loss of the parental unit and the internal functions served by the child’s relationship with that unit. Children experience this loss in multidetermined ways, and attempt to handle it with the utilization of a variety of internal mechanisms. We have observed a striking and persistent fantasy in a number of children whose parents have divorced - the fantasy that the parents will be reconciled with one another and the lost family will be regained in some form. This paper will define the reconciliation fantasy, explore some of the determinants of its emergence and persistence in children of divorce, and discuss implications for therapeutic interventions. Distinction Between Reunion Wishes and Reconciliation Fantasies The literature reflects no clear distinction between reunion wishes and reconciliation fantasies. Children who have been bereaved by the death of a parent have been cited as experiencing fantasies of being reunited with the lost parent (Nagera, 1970; Rochlin, 1953; Tessman, 1978; Wolfenstein, 1965). Children of divorced parents have been noted to experience similar fantasies and wishes (Wallerstein and Kelly, 1976; Tessrnan, 1978). Reunion wishes in these instances imply the reevoking of the lost object - through identification, acting out, or fantasies - and the continuation of the self’s relationship with the object. The reconciliation fantasy, while it may take on certain aspects of the reunion wish, is used here to denote the child’s wish for a continuation of the parental ties to one another as well us to the self. It may represent the wish, not for a return to the perhaps chaotic pre-separation state, but for an ideulized reinstatement of the previous relationship. There may be aspects of wishes for reunion with the non-custodial parent masked within the reconciliation fantasy. We have observed, however, that children who maintain relationships with both parents post divorce, and thus have not actually “lost a parent” as through death or desertation, often