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THE IMPORTANCE OF THE ROLE of the father in the development of the child has been relatively undefined. The effects of paternal deprivation have been largely unspecified.
In a previous paper 6 I proposed that the father's crucial function in his son's development from infancy is to foster his individuation and social relatedness as a male. Similarly the girl, from early infancy, needs the father to help dissolve the symbiotic bonds with mother in order to develop a separate identity. She also needs him to help her learn to relate to the social world. Specifically, for the girl, the father's influence helps her experience herself as a feminine person and helps her relate to the social world as a female.
In order to expand the scope afforded by Freud's psychosexual theory, 9 theories of psychosocial development were evolved from the study of the vicissitudes of the ego in response to social and cultural forces, 10, 14 interpersonal operations, 26 and in developmental life crises. 4 All theories of psychosocial development trace the growth of the individual in the context of his interpersonal relations along a continuum from symbiotic attachment, through differentiation and separation, to intimate relatedness. 4, 10, 27 However, the traditional focus has been on the individual rather than the family, thus emphasizing the fragment rather than the total organic interpersonal