Parental enthusiasm

• The Case of Harold Payne by Don Nathanson, 8/11/96
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    • Kohut and selfobjects by Karen Silver, 5/4/97
      
      

In answer to the question about the importance of the parental response to the infant I would even go beyond Kohut. Kohut talked about the child's becoming aware of being a light in the mother's eye as a most positive experience for the child. I think the mother-with-child experience goes beyond mere rational love and appreciation but the mother ideally would have an almost irrational experience of this being the most wonderful baby in the world and of herself being the most wonderful mother. That would ideally be the experience of the nursing couple, mother-with-baby. Of course, from an outside point of view, it is sheer illusion to think that anyone is that singularly perfect and exceptional in reality. Yet I am convinced by clinical experience that such an illusory experience of grandiosity by mother and child is the precondition for the healthy development of good self-esteem. When you see chronically depressed people in therapy they usually reveal not gross neglect in infancy but a chronic absence of any illusory grandiosity. Throughout childhood a youngster needs to experiences of at least some instances of total parental admiration. A parents need to debunk by confronting the child with the reality of his or her shortcomings are destructive.

• What if? by Don Nathanson, Faculty, 5/6/97