Pseudomaturity in the developmental line of object relations

In this work I identify pseudomaturity as a syndrome that reflects the child's image of key adult figures. In the first case, an adolescent's imitation of his high school principal maintained an internal image of this figure that shielded the boy from the experience of further hostility and from separation anxiety. In the second case, a latency-age girl's coy and servile mannerisms endeared her to adults and served as a reaction formation to her own need to be nurtured. In the third case, a preadolescent boy's cold intellectualism and disdain for peers were modeled after his mother's image of the father and also reflected the mother's image of powerful figures. Finally, an adolescent girl's intermittent runaways were patterned after her mother's premature independence, while her severe isolation of affect acted to minimize the cost of losing her mother's protection.