Page - 163 - in Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence - The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents

Lost by the wayside – overstepping limits 163 afraid back then that people would ask me what my father does, how he’s doing, where do you live, so that I’d have to say: my father isn’t interested in me. I only have my mother. I was afraid someone would laugh at me. (Staudner -Moser 1997, 98) Subsequently, R. talks about the situation with his stepfather and his time at the home, explaining that his stepfather died two years ago. Somehow I miss him, but somehow I don’t. It’s a peculiar feeling I can’t describe. My real father I don’t miss at all. He knows I’m here (in prison) and knows all the rest too, but he tells my mother he doesn’t care. He doesn’t have a son. Why should I need him, then? He’s just as dead to me as my stepfather, in fact. He simply doesn’t exist anymore. (Staudner -Moser 1997, 99) The most important basis for self -confidence and confidence in life is parental love and acknowledgment. Winnicott (1963) speaks of the “shine in the mother’s eyes” as she looks at her baby – we can extend this to a father’s pride in his son. R. has experienced just the opposite: his father, although he retains contact to the mother and knows how R. is doing, still emphasizes his lack of interest in R. Most likely R. harbors mixed emotions, including longing for his father’s love and rage or unwillingness to see him. In further sessions, R.’s great inner resistance against seeing himself as a victim becomes evident. From the psychoanalytic point of view, this does not indicate a dearth of emotion, but rather the opposite – in fact, R. is a greatly vulnerable victim of circumstances. To recognize himself as a victim would be so painful that he drops the whole subject, deriding it as laughable and childish. He was never given the fundamental basis of parental love to which every child has a right; now he is the robber who is taking things from others. Group discussion of various painful experiences of being abused, beaten, abandoned and mocked makes for an intensive, emotionalized atmosphere. Both trainers and participants are able to show understanding and empathy, so that each speaker feels protected and understood. Towards the end of the session, the participants question the train- ers on their relationships with their own children and how they have brought them up, as if curious about a more affectionate style of parent -child relationship: evi- dently, some participants have an unspoken wish for different kinds of parents. The fifteenth session centers on recognizing familiar violent patterns of behav- ior and trying out alternative methods. Using role -playing, situations are staged where the participants would normally react with violence, but this time they are asked to consider alternative plans and try them out, with subsequent group dis- cussion. Here is a description (Ibid, 100–102): With a partner, R. is meant to act out a situation at a bar: he enters his favorite bar, but his usual place is occupied by a stranger, (played by S.) . . . The bar is simulated with furniture: a table, chairs, a few empty cups; smoking is allowed for the purposes of authenticity.