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In this paper, material from a series of simultaneous or successive analyses of severely disturbed children and their neurotic mothers is used to demonstrate the interplay of the child's and the mother's unconscious attitudes. Behavior which would otherwise appear unintelligible, and various neurotic and psychotic symptoms in these children could be understood as the unconscious acceptance and immediate acting-out of their mothers' unconscious wishes. Neither mother nor child is aware of the underlying unconscious motivations.
One episode from the analysis of a four-year-old child and her mother is illustrative. The car sickness which this child suddenly developed together with a phobic clinging to the mother could be understood as a reaction of the child to the mother's unconscious wish that the child be unable to ride away from her in a car. This wish the mother transmitted to the child through her anxious behavior, e.g., by continually asking the child whether she felt nauseous, wanted to vomit, etc. When the child responded to this behavior by becoming sick, the mother in turn became extremely disturbed. The child finally screamed at the mere sight of a car and refused to ride in it at all. After the mother had become conscious of, and worked through these feelings, her child was able to ride in the car symptom free. In fact, she enjoyed going on long rides with her father and it took a good deal more work with the mother to help her accept her child's growing independence.
AUTHOR'S ABSTRACT