Page - 154 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

154 Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits parents. Typically, such parents treat the children in an extremely contradictory fashion, vacillating between spoiling and rejecting them. Under the influence of drugs or alcohol, a parent might completely forget her child (as did B.’s mother) or become violent (as did her new partner). When sober, they suffer guilt feelings and wish to right the wrongs they have committed, attempting to compensate for their bad behavior by giving exaggerated attention to their children. Affects are regulated only on a primitive level, in the either/or mode, with no shades of grey and no reflection on their own behavior. In the interview, B. demonstrated the common defense mechanism of splitting into good and evil as well as avoiding getting in touch with his feelings and painful experiences. Save for a few exceptions, B.’s lifeline falls within the negative region: kin- dergarten, grade school, high school – each of these institutions evokes negative associations. B. says he never liked going to school, was always annoying his teachers and thus always ran into difficulties. When asked what school he went to, B. answered as follows: B: Elementary school and junior high school. I was also in the academic high school, but not for long, maybe half a year. Interviewer: Did you like school? B: In the beginning, yes, but then I was always cutting school since I didn’t feel like going. It was more interesting to go around with my friends. I: Did you have nice teachers? B: No, none of them liked me, because I was always acting up. . . . I was never allowed to go along for the skiing course. I: Why not? B: Because I was always acting up. They wouldn’t let me come on the hiking days either. B. had a crucial experience at the age of 11: a firecracker exploded in his pants pocket, seriously injuring him. He had to spend three and a half months in the hospital. B: Shortly before the operation, my mother stayed a few nights in the hospital with me. I: Were you in a very bad way at that time? B: Yes. I: What were your fears? Were you afraid of illness, the doctors, of being left alone? B: I just was afraid then, I didn’t exactly know of what. I: Were you afraid of what might happen? B: I didn’t feel much. But then it was unpleasant because my skin was transplanted off my right thigh. I didn’t have stitches, but iron clips instead– about 54 of them. Then I was afraid of them being taken out. That was very unpleasant. Now I still have scars, but that doesn’t matter. (Staudner -Moser 1997, 77)