Psychotherapy of a fatherless young woman

Psychotherapy of some fatherless adult patients suggests that they may replace the shameful experience of their childhood by an illusory picture of their past, and that they may exalt their absent fathers to an ideal perfection in order not to face the possibility that their fathers might have been irresponsible deserters. The two conflicting versions of the absent father, one conscious and one unconscious, are reflected in their image of themselves. They do not talk of their shame, because they hide it from themselves and from others, but it emerges in their dreams. They are driven to enact shame repeatedly, not by experiencing it themselves, but by subjecting their partners and lovers to shame. Their anger against the deserting father remains unexpressed, and is revealed, instead, in relation to the therapist, and in other relationships, and should be interpreted as an unconscious device to conceal their shame at the hands of their fathers. Such interpretations take time to be effective, because knowing the true source of anger (the absent father) would bring the patients too close to the unbearable experience of shame.