Ghost In The Nursery: Article Analysis

Ghost in the Nursery; Repercussions of abuse and neglect in child development and family dynamic
Erika Garcia
Loyola University of Chicago
Jun 22, 2013

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis about the professional social work intervention to Fraiberg article entitled “Ghost in the Nursery; A Psychoanalytical Approach to the Problems of Impaired Infant-Mother Relationships”. This paper addressed the patterns of abuse and neglect and the importance of these factors in the development of an individual’s personality. Additionally, this paper presents the importance of connecting ‘affect’ and ‘effect’ in painful events, the impact of personal strengths, and the social worker’s clinical intervention during
treatment toward recovery.

Keywords: Abuse, Neglect, Personality Development, Affect, Effect, Strengthens, Clinical Intervention, Treatment and Recovery

Ghost in the Nursery

The stigma of abuse and neglect remain nowadays. In our society, abuse and neglect are increasingly becoming part of human relationships.
Abuse and neglect are challenging and difficult to deal with on the entire family dynamic. The behavioral interaction patterns among each individual play a main role in shaping the personality of a child. However, the children are the most vulnerable members since they are in a process of physical and mental development. When a child is neglected or abused, the likelihood of adopting negative patterns of behavior affecting in his/her adulthood increases.
Notwithstanding, children easy adopt abuse and neglect patterns due to the process of development. Children tend to internalize these patterns and repress these feelings that abuse and neglect bring with them, leading toward maladaptive behavioral patterns in future stages of the child’s life (Fraiberg, 1975). Thus, as children grow up, they depend on adults, parents, relatives, teachers, and child-care workers. The role of a social worker is to develop interventions on time in the settings where the abuse and neglect are taking place.
The role of the health care system in the protection of children is to ensure that health professionals and government agencies take their share of responsibility, in order to create an environment where each child is protected from abuse and neglect (Pejovic, 2013).
The article “Ghost in the nursery” describes the difference between affect and effect. Affect is a behavior influencing something rather than cause. On the other hand, cause is the result of a specific behavior. In a family dynamic there are constant interactions among its members. Child-parent relationships have an important meaning and impact on the development of a child’s personality. It is important to mention that when a child is growing in an abusive and negligent environment, the affect of these factors could traumatize the child and emerge into both children and parents’ negative feeling (effect) toward each other. The magnitude of the impact will vary depending of the resources (strengthens and weaknesses) of the child and parent. However, resilience plays an important role in order to cope with the “ghost in the nursery”.
In the “Ghost in the nursery” article, the author performs the therapeutic treatment through sessions in which she visits both clients’ homes during the entire course of the intervention. Thus, adopting the approach of visiting both clients’ homes could interfere with developing transference and countertransference. The client could feel that the professional invades his/her space, especially when the engagement and transference have not occurred. It is important to consider that the first sessions could take place at the professional’s workplace until transference and engagement have occurred. On the other hand, the client could increase the sense of responsibility in order to make the client feel involved in his/her treatment. A client’s responsibility and involvement in the treatment are essential to progress.
Conversely, the author vaguely includes the participation of father in the treatment. The father’s role is multifaceted. Involvement of the father figure in the child’s development influences children in different ways that may vary from family to family, depending on their aspirations, cultural background, community, etc. Lamb adds, the “father must thus be viewed in the broader familial context; positive paternal influences are more likely to occur not only when there are supportive father-child relationship, but the father relationships with their partners, ex-partners, and presumably other children, establish and maintain positive familial context” (Lamb, 2010).
The effects of including fathers in counseling treatment may increase the overall benefit of counseling and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the clinical interventions.
Focusing on the article written by Fraiberg, the author does not focus and mention in a deeper way the development stage of the parents in both cases in order to create a better understanding related to the adolescents’ parents’ behavior.
It must be emphasized that most adolescents are ill prepared to be parents. Those adolescents who become parents during adolescence stage of life may report lack of readiness to deal with the responsibility that is involved with parenthood. Both young mothers and young fathers may lack the understanding of proper care and developmental norms for their children and tend to have unrealistic expectation about their children. Thus, adolescent parenthood may be a highly stressful life experience from the teenage years into adulthood (Kiselica, 2008). In consequence, this expands the knowledge in regard to comprehend adolescent parents transitions both as individuals beings and members of a new social group, which is the family. Nevertheless, when the professional approaches and encompasses both psychosocial and biological areas, this leads to a multifaceted intervention, addressing the difficulties and needs assertively. As mental health professionals, we cannot focus only on individual factors, but must focus on all the different factors that a human being encompasses
and integrate them into treatment.
Finally, in the article “Ghost in the Nursery” the author mentions that individuals who are able to remember the effect of abuse and neglect do not repeat the behavior, known as the ‘ghost’, however those individuals who do not remember tend to repeat the behavioral patterns with their own children.
Thus, when the ‘ghosts’ are present in the nursery, parents are unable to connect emotionally with their children, repeating and reviving their own experiences and depositing these patterns onto their children.
However, different lines of research have shown that individuals with a history of abuse and neglect are at greater risk of becoming depressed or experiencing psychotic features (Brown, 1999). It may be difficult to overcome abuse and neglect if they are not properly dealt with. The personal resources, (strengthen and resilience) and clinical interventions (counseling) play an important role toward recovery in order to create insight and awareness in regard the “ghost” and avoid the repetition of maladaptive
behaviors.

References

Brown, J., & Cohen, P. (1999). Childhood Abuse and Neglect: Specificity of
Effects on Adolescent and Young Adult Depression and. Journal Of The American Academy Of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 38(12), 1490.

Fraiberg, S., Adelson, E., & Shapiro, V. (1975). Ghosts in the nursery: A psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships. American Academic of Child and Adolescent Psychology 1.4(3)

Kiselica, M. (2008). When Boys Become Parents: Adolescent Fatherhood in
America. Retrieved from http://book.google.com

Lamb, M. (2010). The Role of the Father. Retrieved from http://book.google.com

Pejovic Milovancevic, M., Radosavljev Kircanski, J., Vidojevic, O., Kalanj, D.,
Mincic, T., Stojanovic, S., & Vidosavljevic, M. (2013). The Role Of Mental Health Service Providers In Protection From Child And Adolescent Abuse And Neglect - A Serbian Example. Pedijatrija Danas: Pediatrics Today, 9(1), 72-77. doi:10.5457/p2005-114.64