Page - 112 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

112 Development of feeling Parents feel their hopes and life plans mirrored as their children seek their place in the world. They compare what they have so far achieved in life to what they planned and envy their children – for whom the world is still relatively open – for their chances. The children’s growing up constitutes a precursor to their leaving the family, which in turn constitutes a major separation for the parents. In particu- lar, mothers who have given up their careers for their children now fear becoming “unemployed”. A special effort is required to direct attention to the mother’s own wishes and capabilities. Here is one example from a patient in therapy: In London, a 13 -year -old boy, Ian, was brought to me for a preliminary dis- cussion. He claimed he did not have “the problem”, but instead his mother did. In the parental conference, it became clear that the mother’s fears of her son’s growing up were indeed considerable. In fact, she gratefully took up my offer of psychotherapy. With the help of therapy, she was able to get a job at the age of 40 and fulfill her wish of obtaining a driver’s license. Only in this phase did it become clear that she had not yet become emotionally inde- pendent from her own (single) mother, who had helped her greatly but also determined much of her life. After she passed the road test, I asked her how she planned to celebrate – for her, an unfamiliar concept. Astonished, she told me in the next session that her son (whom she had considered particularly dif- ficult) had shown great appreciation for her accomplishment. His academic performance had steadily improved since she had gone back to work. House- hold tasks were shared among the whole family, and she was able to assume family authority herself. Discussion I was able to accept the son’s point of view that not he but his mother had a problem with his growing up, and we worked through this in her therapy. Uncon- sciously, the mother could and would not give up her son, since she had not yet cut the emotional umbilical cord to her own mother. Envy was only present in a mild form, since it was countered by love for her son. The central focus of her therapy was whether she could now fulfill her secret wishes and longings at the age of 40. Would she be able to develop and use her talents through profes- sional training? The question in countertransference was whether I, as her “ana- lytic mother”, would allow her a professional and emotional development. As soon as we could work through the mother’s pressure and projections on Ian in analysis, he felt free to study on his own account. The mother was completely surprised by how positively her son reacted when she was also learning: she then became a role model for him, instead of criticizing and devaluing him as before. Working through the mother’s earlier conflicts with her own mother (and with me, through transference) made it possible for her to transform her mild envy into self -ambition – to change her own life as opposed to hindering her son in his development. In her essay “Envy in Everyday Life” (1986b), Betty Joseph