Ellen Foster Object Relations
Provide a brief description of the individual.
Ellen Foster is a ten-year-old, Caucasian, female who experiences a series of traumatic events during her childhood. These traumatic events include her witnessing domestic violence in the home, her mother’s suicide and subsequent physical, sexual and psychological abuse by her alcoholic father, her maternal grandmother and other relatives (aunts and cousins on the mother’s side). Ellen shuttled from home to home, staying for a short time at the home of her teacher, then to different relatives’ homes, to finally a foster home where she eventually resides. Ellen’s “new mama”, as she refers to her, is a much better role model then she has ever experienced before. New Mama is supportive and nurturing towards Ellen. Ellen reports that government and church funding support the foster family. She has no siblings. Ellen is intelligent and enjoys doing art. She often rides a pony at her new foster home.
Ellen misses her mother, and longed for a caregiver before she had new mama. This is evident when she reports eaves dropping on a “colored” family and “started making a list of all that a family should have. Of course, there is the mama and the daddy but if one has to be missing then it is OK if the one left can count for two. But not just anybody can count or more than his or herself (p. 67)”. She often sought help from her Aunt Betsey and neighbors. Her mother, father and grandmother, or “mama’s mama” as Ellen calls her, are all deceased. The grandmother was old and abusive towards Ellen forcing her to work the fields with the “colored” field hands on her farms in the middle of a sweltering hot summer until school started. Ellen eventually becomes the caregiver and housemaid to mama’s mama after the grandmother fires all of her household servants. Despite Ellen’s care and good works for her, the grandmother despises her because she is convinced that Ellen was in “cahoots” with her father in abusing her daughter, taking
Ellen Foster is a ten-year-old, Caucasian, female who experiences a series of traumatic events during her childhood. These traumatic events include her witnessing domestic violence in the home, her mother’s suicide and subsequent physical, sexual and psychological abuse by her alcoholic father, her maternal grandmother and other relatives (aunts and cousins on the mother’s side). Ellen shuttled from home to home, staying for a short time at the home of her teacher, then to different relatives’ homes, to finally a foster home where she eventually resides. Ellen’s “new mama”, as she refers to her, is a much better role model then she has ever experienced before. New Mama is supportive and nurturing towards Ellen. Ellen reports that government and church funding support the foster family. She has no siblings. Ellen is intelligent and enjoys doing art. She often rides a pony at her new foster home.
Ellen misses her mother, and longed for a caregiver before she had new mama. This is evident when she reports eaves dropping on a “colored” family and “started making a list of all that a family should have. Of course, there is the mama and the daddy but if one has to be missing then it is OK if the one left can count for two. But not just anybody can count or more than his or herself (p. 67)”. She often sought help from her Aunt Betsey and neighbors. Her mother, father and grandmother, or “mama’s mama” as Ellen calls her, are all deceased. The grandmother was old and abusive towards Ellen forcing her to work the fields with the “colored” field hands on her farms in the middle of a sweltering hot summer until school started. Ellen eventually becomes the caregiver and housemaid to mama’s mama after the grandmother fires all of her household servants. Despite Ellen’s care and good works for her, the grandmother despises her because she is convinced that Ellen was in “cahoots” with her father in abusing her daughter, taking