Adolescent males, fatherhood, and abortion

The event of elective abortion to terminate unplanned pregnancies brought to the fore and allowed exploration of issues of fatherliness normally latent and, therefore, not observable in adolescence. This is consistent with the psychoanalytic view that fatherly development is an ongoing process begun long before actual parenthood, encompassing an array of conflicts and themes which are conscious to varying degrees in different developmental stages. Issues expressed by the group of adolescent boys studied were compared with those described in the psychoanalytic literature. Most prominent were regressive wishes for nurturance, competition with one's own father, and efforts to meet paternal ego ideals of maturity and responsibility. Parturition envy and strivings for immortality through offspring were not expressed in this group. Themes of fatherliness were not exclusive; they became intertwined with normal tasks of adolescence and individual dynamics as is illustrated with a clinical case.