[The child as a symptom of his parents]

The child psychiatrist is often consulted for symptoms which apparently belong to the child but, in fact, betray a much broader problem. This is substantiated by three clinical observations. The child's symptoms may be the only manifestation of a pathological family organization. The problem often originates in the parents' relationship: the parents can stay together only if the unconscious conflict between them remains hidden; however, the repressed pulsions remain active and provide the child with a basis for building a symptomatic complex which, as for neurotic arrangements, is a compromise between expression and repression of unconscious pulsions. In other cases, the child's symptoms represent an actualization or a revival of the parents' repressed phantasms. Thus, the child becomes a symptom of a pathological situation which affects the whole family. The child's experiences during the first years of life are often found to have been deficient. Inferiority of one of the parents, usually the father, compared to the other, is often noted. In all cases, the therapeutic approach requires special caution.