1 May 2024

I have read an interesting article called “Ghosts in the Nursery – a psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships” written by Selma Fraiberg, Edna Adelson and Vivian Shapiro. The article starts with the sentence that every child room has ghosts, “the visitors from the unremembered past of the parents”. Those uninvited visitors can bring troubles from their burial residences. They can come even to some families who are healthy and stable as they may break through in an unexpected moment. Unfortunately, some other families can struggle with those ghosts most of the time mostly because of parents’ unresolved past experiences, such as trauma, tragedy, sickness, loss. Those ghosts can even have habitation among families, and they can make serious problems, for example in areas such as sleep, feeding, toilet training, playing, communication etc. It would be helpful for those parents to seek professional help so that they do not repeat the tragedy of their childhood with their children. Therapy can help those families to get rid of those ghosts and be free.

The authors of this article have mentioned two different families who participated in the Infant Mental Health program. Mary, who was almost six months old and her mother, Mrs March, were in therapy. Mary was very quiet, not showing much interest in her environment, not smiling, not turning to her mum when being in discomfort. Later, Mrs March was seen as a depressed mother, who could not hear the cry of her baby. Mrs March was abandoned as a child, and no one was there to hear her crying when she was a baby. Thus, she needed to recognise the repetition of the past in her present situation with her daughter. The first hypothesis of the Infant Mental Health Program was: “When this mother’s own cries are heard, she will hear her child’s cries.” When that happens, the ghosts in Mary’s room will start leaving and the bond between the baby and mum will begin to emerge. With the connection formed between mum and baby almost everything else may find solutions.

The article describes another family - Greg, who was almost four months old baby and his 16-year-old mother Annie. Annie did not want to take care of her son. She was also afraid of her own destructive feelings and thoughts toward her son. At the beginning, Annie did not want to be in therapy but after some time she established a new healthy relationship with her therapist. The therapist told her: “It will be safe with me to speak of the frightening memories and thoughts, and when you speak of them, you will no longer need to be afraid of them; you will have another kind of control over them.” Annie has learned how to put her anger into words and make peace with her feelings. The therapist helped Annie to recognise and understand how her motherhood is affected by her fear from her own childhood, when she was abandoned and abused as a child.

The article has also mentioned a pathological identification with the dangerous enemies of the ego – “identification with the aggressor”. This happens when repression in the present moment provides motives and energy for repetition of the memories from childhood abuse, oppression and abandonment. Not remembered painful memories can relate to some affective experiences. Parents who cannot remember may find themselves in an unconscious alliance with the problematic figures of their past, which can also influence their children life. Some parents can remember terrible things that happened to them in childhood, but they cannot remember horror, helplessness, anxiety, shame, misery as a consequence of that experience.

It is necessary for parents to recognise how internalised reality and memories remain in and affect their present. Therapy can help them to reconnect with their long-forgotten memories so that new gates of hope can open. In remembering and dealing with their childhood issues, parents are protected from repeating their difficult past. Extraordinary changes and transformation can come from remembering and uncovering repressed emotions. Then, parents can use those memories as a guide, what they want for their children and how they want to be with their children.

Sometimes when parents cannot remember those memories, they can create new memories. Right now, in your relationship with your child, you can create ‘angels’ - experiences when you and your child feel connected with each other, feel joy for each other, feel empathic resonance with each other. Parenting can give you new opportunities to re-due your own childhood and you may take advantage of it.