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THERE ARE MANY REASONS FOR a father's permanent absence from home. Divorce, an accidental death, death following an illness, or incarceration, for example, entail very different circumstances for the spouse, the family, and of course, the child. These circumstances will inevitably effect a developing child in very different ways. These differences notwithstanding, paternal absence in and of itself has a major developmental impact on a child.
Fatherlessness does not necessarily produce psychopathology and is not a cause for psychotherapeutic intervention. Nevertheless, the effects of a parent's absence on the process of a child's psychotherapy are significant, regardless of the disorder for which psychotherapy has been undertaken. The approach presented in this essay differentiates the problem of paternal absence from the problem of paternal loss and absence on the process of psychotherapy. To this end, the psychotherapies of several children who each lost contact with his father at a very young age will be presented. In this way, absence can be examined without the compounding problems entailed by loss. To further minimize the complexity of the problem, only the treatments of boys have been selected. From these treatments, the technical adaptations particular to the treatment of the fatherless boy will be articulated. Many of these principles will also apply to circumstances of experienced loss and absence, although in such circumstances the issue of loss may at times overshadow the issue of absence.