Children (Child Psychology)
I
must make is perfectly clear that I in no way support those (sic -
Freudian) views which maintain that the relation of the child to the
parents, or
to his brother, sisters, comrades, is to be explained simply as the immature
beginnings of the sexual function. Those views, surely not
unknown to you, are in my opinion premature and one-sided generalizations which
have already given rise to the most absurd misinterpretations.
When pathological phenomena are present to a degree which would justify a
psychological explanation along sexual lines, it is not the
child’s own
psychology that is fundamentally responsible, but the sexually disturbed
psychology of the parents. The mind of the child is extremely
susceptible and dependent, and is steeped for a long time in the atmosphere of
his parental psychology, only freeing itself from this influence relatively
late, if at all. TDoP 50
I will now try to give you some idea of the fundamental viewpoints of
analytical psychology which are useful in considering the mind of the child,
especially at school age. You must not think that I am in a
position to offer you a list of hints for immediate application.
All I can do is to provide a deeper insight into the general laws which
underlie the psychic development of the child. But I shall be
content if, from what I am able to give you, you carry away a sense of the
mysterious evolution of the highest human faculties. The
great responsibility which devolves upon you as educators of the next generation
will prevent you from forming hasty conclusions; for there are certain
view-points which need to germinate, often for a long time, before they can
profitably be put into practice. The deepened psychological
knowledge of the teacher should not, as unfortunately sometimes happens, be
unloaded directly on the child; rather it should help the teacher to adopt an
understanding attitude towards the child’s psychic life. This
knowledge is definitely for adults, not for children. What
they are given must always be something elementary, and suited to the
immature mind. TDoP 51
Whenever a young child exhibits the symptoms of a
neurosis one should not
waste too much time examining his
unconscious. One should
begin one’s investigations elsewhere, starting with the mother; for almost
invariably the parents are either the direct cause of the child’s
neurosis or at
least the most important element in it. TDoP 68
To analyse children is a most difficult and delicate task.
The conditions under which we have to work are altogether different from
those governing the analysis of grown-ups.
The child has a
special psychology. Just as its body during the embryonic
period is part of the mother’s body, so its mind is for many years part of the
parents’ mental atmosphere. That explains why so many
neuroses of children are more
symptoms of the mental condition of the parents
than a genuine illness of the child. Only a very little of
the child’s psychic life is its own; for the most part it is still dependent on
that of the parents. Such dependence is normal, and to
disturb it is injurious to the natural growth of the child’s mind.
It is therefore understandable that premature and indelicate
enlightenment on the facts of sex can have a disastrous effect on his relations
with his parents, and such an effect is almost inevitable if you base your
analysis on the dogma that the relations between parents and children are
necessarily sexual. TDoP 75
It is no less unjustifiable to give the so-called
Oedipus complex the
status of a prime cause. The Oedipus complex is a
symptom.
Just as any strong attachment to a person or a thing may be described as
a “marriage,” and just as the primitive mind can express almost anything by
using a sexual metaphor, so the regressive tendency of a child may be described
in sexual terms as an “incestuous longing for the mother.”
But it is no more than a figurative way of speaking. The word
“incest” has a definite meaning, and designates a definite thing, and as a
general rule can only be applied to an adult who is psychologically incapable of
linking his sexuality to its proper object. To apply the same
term to the difficulties in the development of a child’s consciousness is highly
misleading. TDoP 75
The
child is so much a part of the psychological atmosphere of the
parents that
secret and unsolved problems between them can influence its health profoundly.
The participation mystique, or primitive identity, causes the
child to feel the conflicts of the parents and to suffer from them as if they
were its own. It is hardly ever the open conflict or the
manifest difficulty that has such a poisonous effect, but almost always parental
problems that have been kept hidden or allowed to become unconscious.
The author of these neurotic disturbances is, without exception, the
unconscious. Things that hang in the air and are vaguely felt
by the child, the oppressive atmosphere of apprehension and foreboding, these
slowly seep into the child’s soul like a poisonous vapour.
TDoP 125
About education in general and school education in particular the doctor
has little to say from the standpoint of his science, as that is hardly his
business. But on the education of difficult or otherwise
exceptional children he has an important word to add. He
knows only too well from his practical experience what a vital role parental
influences and the effects of schooling play even in the life of the adult.
He is therefore inclined, when dealing with children’s neuroses, to seek
the root cause less in the child itself than in its adult surroundings, and more
particularly in the parents. Parents have the strongest
effect upon the child not only through its inherited constitution, but also
through the tremendous psychic influence they themselves exert.
That being so, the uneducatedness and unconsciousness of the adult works
far more powerfully than any amount of good advice, commands, punishments, and
good intentions. But when, as is unfortunately all too often
the case, parents and teachers expect the child to make a better job of what
they themselves do badly, the effect is positively devastating.
Again and again we see parents thrusting their unfulfilled illusions and
ambitions on to the child, and forcing it into a role for which it is in no
circumstances fitted. TDoP 132
…
children do feel their inferiority in certain ways, and they begin to compensate
by assuming a false superiority. This is only another
inferiority, but a moral one; no genuine satisfaction results, and so a vicious
circle is begun. The more a real inferiority is compensated
by a false superiority, the less the initial inferiority is remedied, and the
more it is intensified by the feeling of moral inferiority.
This necessarily leads to more false superiority, and so on at an ever
increasing rate. TDoP 130
If
even the alledgedly mature man is afraid of the unknown, why shouldn’t the child
hesitate also? The horror novi is one of the most
striking qualities of primitive man. This is a natural enough
obstacle, as obstacles go; but excessive attachment to the parents is unnatural
and pathological, because a too great fear of the unknown is itself
pathological. Hence one should avoid the one-sided conclusion
that hesitation in advancing is necessarily due to sexual dependence on the
parents. Often it may be simply a reculer pour mieux
sauter. Even in cases where children do exhibit sexual
symptoms – where, in other words, the incestuous tendency is perfectly obvious –
I should recommend a careful examination of the parent’s psyche.
One finds astonishing things, such as a father unconsciously in love with
his own daughter, a mother who is unconsciously flirting with her son, imputing
under the cover of unconsciousness their own adult emotions to their children,
who, again unconsciously, act the parts allotted to them.
Children will not of course play these strange and unnatural roles unless
unconsciously forced into them by their parents’ attitude.
TDoP 76
In his early years the child lives in a state of
participation mystique
with his parents. Time and again it can be seen how he reacts
immediately to any important developments in the parental psyche.
Needless to say both the parents and the child are unconscious of what is
going on. The infectious nature of the parent’s complexes can
be seen from the effect their mannerisms have on their children.
Even when they make completely successful efforts to control themselves,
so that no adult could detect the least trace of a complex, the children will
get wind of it somehow. TDoP 55