Caretakers and the Sources of Their Dysfunctions Therapeutic Implications

In modern Western society, parents, if they are caring for their children at all, may be only members of a larger group of adults engaged in the care of a particular child. From the child's perspective, it is more appropriate to speak of caretaking units, defined as one person (e.g., either parent) or a group of people from whom children may receive what they need for their development. In this essay, I shall use parenting and caretaking interchangeably. The concept of a caretaking unit is particularly useful in assessing the development of children who grow up in reconstituted families, in multiple foster homes, in group homes, or under other unconventional circumstances. The concept helps us appreciate why many children whose history indicates dislocations and frequent absences of the primary caretaker are still able to cope with some very difficult life situations.

In order to meet the developmental needs of a psychologically changing, growing child, caretaking requires emotional resources that are not required by ordinary life stresses. Caretakers may be well-functioning adults in all other respects, but discrete deficits in their self-development may become manifest when they become responsible for the care of a child. To read infants' and children's clues requires an adult form of empathy, one in which caretakers can decenter from their own needs and are able to focus on and respond to what the child is experiencing. These are adults who are capable of immersing themselves in the inner world of the child without feeling threatened in their own sense of separateness and without injecting their own needs into the interaction with the child (Olden, 1953; Ornstein and Ornstein, 1985).