The First Year of Analytic Treatment of an Adopted Latency Boy

Let me now open the discussion for comments from the audience, and perhaps step in again at a later point.

I wondered about your point about the biological father. I thought Jill Hodges, in one of her papers, discussed the need to create an inner image of the biological parents, even in children who were adopted at birth. Now the interesting thing about this boy is that he has this Lifestory Book with photographs. There is a photograph of his mother, a photograph of the stepfather, and a photograph of the housemother who looked after him in the Children's Home, but no photographs of his father. He is the real unknown person, nothing is known about him, he was no longer around at the time of Mark's birth. The majority of adopted children, at least those given up early, live with a history or a myth that they are told about and which may extend their memories, or replace them. It is interesting that the stepfather visited him more regularly, and is said to have had a closer attachment to him while he was in the Children's Home than his mother. The mother was a very unreliable object. The stepfather did not want to give him up. But he was at that time no longer cohabiting with the mother and the authorities had to intervene and state that it was not in the best interest of the child that he continue to visit Mark in his foster home with the Ws. These stories are very important for him. In addition to memories of the stepfather he has heard the stories of his early life from the social worker and they are also discussed in the family. So as far as he is concerned, it is the stepfather who wanted him, and this may be a reason why he also sees his adoptive father as his rescuer and why he feels more secure in the love of the adoptive father than he does in the love of the adoptive mother.