Self-pathology in childhood: developmental and clinical considerations

Area of Science:

• Child Psychology
• Psychoanalytic Theory

Background:

• Self-cohesion in children, experienced as vigor and pleasure, develops through environmental responses to narcissistic needs.
• Parental mirroring and merger with the idealized selfobject are vital for self-cohesion.
• Parental empathic capacities are fundamental to providing these essential selfobject responses.

Observation:

• Childhood psychopathology conceptualization benefits from organizing clinical data around self-stability and cohesiveness.
• Parental selfobject functions are critical for the evolving self in children.
• Parental empathy is essential for executing selfobject functions and supporting the child's psychological environment.

Findings:

• The development and maintenance of parental empathy are central to a child's self-development.
• Recognizing parents as selfobjects bridges intrapsychic and interpersonal treatment approaches for children.
• Transmuting internalization of analyst's selfobject functions aids belated structure building, a process that can be remobilized in the child's environment.

Implications:

• Diagnosing self-pathology in childhood has significant treatment consequences for both the child and their psychological environment.
• Remobilizing parental selfobject functions depends on parents' empathy towards their symptomatic child, potentially requiring parental treatment.
• A theory of the self within its psychological environment offers a valuable tool for child therapists to understand complex psychological conditions beyond simple neurotic or psychotic categorizations.