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In this commentary, I shall endeavour to make a hypothetical reconstruction of Nina's personal history as related in Giovanna Ambrosio's clinical material.
She begins by presenting Nina's most unusual family background. At her grand-parents' suggestion, and for family reasons, such as assuring equal inheritance to both sons, Nina was given up for adoption to her father's brother and his childless wife. At the time, she was the first-born and only child of her biological parents, although the mother was now pregnant again; three other daughters were born to her natural parents, whom they kept. They all lived together in one big house. The family, thus, consisted of two sets of parents whom Nina called ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’, respectively, and four sisters. I wonder what family pathology made everybody so compliant to this unusual request. Nobody voiced any opposition or took a stand. Was this compliance due to cultural factors that demand obedience to one's parents or did it come out of a need to share the inheritance legally to avoid feelings of envy, guilt and voracity? This was the family secret—known consciously or unconsciously by all members of this family but not voiced, discussed or questioned. Years later, Nina stated that, in reality, she felt she was nobody's daughter.
In such a case of actual, objective trauma, one could be misled by the external circumstances, ignoring the role played by Nina's own psyche in collaborating to keep the family secret by not questioning this peculiar family set-up. Supposing amnesia had set in when she was given way for adoption at the age of 18 months, she could not objectively know much about her biological parents. But her history shows that she did have unconscious knowledge of their being part of her internal history. They made themselves present in her life by the confusion created in her mind, which was aggravated by living with both them and the adoptive parents; confusion held on to and which she was unable to unravel be