Editor's Introduction

In “Who Is Father? Where Is Father? Some Facts, Fantasies, and Fallacies,” Herbert Strean focuses on the role of the father in intrapsychic life, as well as in the family and society in general. Strean reviews some of the transformative social changes that have so altered the role of the father in American society, as well as the significance of father's absence in family life. Such social ills as juvenile delinquency, drug and alcohol abuse, teenage pregnancy, welfare dependency, and child poverty, according to social scientists, can be directly linked to the erosion of the two-parent family and the concomitant lack of involvement shown by fathers in such a cultural milieu. The adult's difficulty with intimacy has traditionally been understood to arise from problems in the pre-oedipal relationship with mother; however, developmental experiences between fathers and children in which dependency strivings are met with frustration might also culminate in adulthood problems with intimacy, Strean reasons. Armed with data from human biology, sociology and psychoanalysis, he explores such phenomena as the father's emotional withdrawal from the infant's life, and the profound sequelae brought about by such emotional absence; linkages with illustrative child and adult case material add further momentum to Strean's provocative arguments.