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This article maintains a balance between theory and clinical experience. The parent's murderous wish toward the child is communicated more or less subtly and results in problems of sensitivity to criticism, a feeling of being unreal and worthless, and is a suicidal potential in moments of crisis. Two case histories are presented in detail and seven other patients, treated by various therapists, are referred to.
The author, like Ferenczi, Lorand, Sullivan, Berliner, and Menaker, thinks the problem is established in the preoedipal period. The death instinct is seen as the child having accepted the possibility that her worthlessness caused the mother's hatred. The resulting masochism helps the child to survive. Bloch interpreted to the patient that she was determined to believe that everything was wrong with her and that this came from the mother's wish to kill her. The patient reacted intensely but finally accepted the possibility that not only had her feeling of worthlessness not caused her mother's hatred but proof of her own worth would not bring back mother's love.