(1984). International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 65:423-433 Intermittent Decathexis—A Type of Parental Dysfunction Robert A. Furman and Erna Furman For many years now, the Cleveland group of child analysts has been using the concept of a particular type of parental dysfunction, best described as intermittent decathexis of the child by his parent. This has proven to be a helpful concept which, although reported in prior publications by one of the authors (E. Furman, 1975), (1978), has not as such been the subject of a paper, at least to the best of our knowledge. Anna Freud (1967) did address one aspect of what we wish to consider at length here. It would seem appropriate to introduce the topic with the clinical examples that served as our introduction. A number of years ago a young latency boy was in analysis who could be characterized as having deviant ego development, a child we would call 'atypical'. By 'atypical' we mean, descriptively in this instance, that he presented a mixture of ego defects, such as in reality testing and cognitive functioning despite a normal intellectual endowment, defects not comprehensible [This is a summary or excerpt from the full text of the book or article. The full text of the document is available to subscribers.] |
