The psychosis of fatherhood: a clinical study

The psychosis of fatherhood is classified as an acute delusional disorder. It has been psychodynamically correlated with preoedipal conflicts. Common elements were identified in 6 men who were about to become fathers for the first time. Their personal histories and their clinical pictures were very similar. It is our hypothesis that up to the moment of facing the impact of becoming fathers themselves, these subjects had managed to avoid the oedipal conflict. As a consequence of this avoidance, they failed to identify with the father figure and to incorporate the paternal function into their symbolic universe. Once they accepted the concrete reality of fatherhood, these men underwent an acute psychotic crisis having inadequately interiorized paternal role models for themselves. We believe that this sort of psychopathological behavior becomes clinically manifest only when triggered by impending fatherhood.