The psycho-analytic study of the familyFlugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Science
The psycho-analytic study of the family
Flugel, J. C. (John Carl)
Families; Marriage; Parent and child; Psychoanalysis
It is principally because a displacement of this sort can be much more
easily produced in certain kinds of neurosis than in others, that
neuroses differ from one another markedly in their amenability to
treatment; what Freud has called the Transference Neuroses[146] (such as
Hysteria or Obsessional Neurosis), in which the patient, though unable
to adjust his emotions to the level required for satisfactory adult
life, has nevertheless for the most part attained--and retained--the
stage of object-love, comparing very favourably in this respect with
the Narcissistic Neuroses (such as Paranoia), in which the patient has
regressed beyond the stage of object-love to the relatively infantile
level at which his emotional outlets are sought only in, or in connection
with, his own person.
[Sidenote: The displacement of parent-regarding feelings, on to objects
other than individuals]
All the displacements with which we have been hitherto concerned have
at least this one important feature in common, that the feelings and
tendencies originally directed to the parents are transferred to definite
individuals. There are, however, certain forms of displacement, of very
considerable sociological importance, in which this is no longer the case,
the parent substitutes being found, not in any individual persons, but in
groups, places, societies and institutions.
[Sidenote: Home]
Thus in many cases the home, as the place in which the parents lived
and in which the feelings of love, tenderness and admiration towards
the parents were first developed, acquires and retains throughout life
a peculiar attractiveness, in which piety, tenderness and pride are
intermingled and which is, it would seem, to a very large extent derived
from the emotional attitude of the child towards the parents themselves.
The attachment to the home in this sense frequently manifests itself in
home-sickness whenever the individual is compelled to leave his native
place or native land; those who suffer from home-sickness to an unusual
degree or for an unusual length of time being in most cases burdened with
an overstrong attachment to and dependence on their family, or certain
members of it, having failed to free themselves adequately from their
infantile fixations in this direction.
[Sidenote: Family or Clan]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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