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
In all the more favourable cases of development, however, it is probable
that even from the first the conflict between the primitive elements of
love and hate and the newly unfolding ethical tendencies results to a
great extent in the displacement and gradual sublimation of the former and
not merely in their repression or return to a latent state. The process
of displacement here takes the form of a dissociation of the more erotic
aspects of the child's affection from the loved parent--these aspects
being thus set free for bestowal upon other persons. The choice of such
fresh objects for the child's affection is determined in accordance
with what would appear to be a general law governing the process of
displacement, viz., that the new end or object, to which the psychic
energy is directed, must have some associative connection with the old
object which has been abandoned. For this reason, it is very frequently
possible to trace some kind of resemblance between the loved parent and
the new object of affection; though this resemblance may be of very
various degrees or kinds. Thus, the new object of affection may bear
some resemblance to the parent in one or more of the following points:
physical appearance (either general or as regards some special feature),
mental characteristics, circumstances of life (both these last again being
either general or special), age, name, past history, occupation or family
relationship. Sometimes, moreover, the resemblance may be of an opposing
or negative kind, the later object of love being markedly different from,
or contrasting with, the original object in some one or more of these
characters. In the case of a succession of such loved objects, it is
not unusual for the resemblance to the original object of affection to
become gradually less pronounced, in accordance with a further general
characteristic of Displacement, in virtue of which the higher sublimations
(_i. e._, those which imply ends very different from, and of higher
cultural value than, the original objects of desire) are only attained
slowly and through a number of intermediate steps.
[Sidenote: Parent Substitutes]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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