IDEOLOGY, DEPRIVATION, AND ADOLESCENCE - A PSYCHOANALYTICAL, CLINICALPOINT-OF-VIEW

This paper relates to some aspects and some moments in the disengageme nt and reengagement process in adolescence within the framework of kib butz life. The data for this paper are based on observations of the in ternal representations and metaphoric understanding of adolescents and young adult kibbutz patients who were treated through psychoanalysis by the author or brought to her for supervision. The cases under discu ssion grew up on kibbutzim at a time when the ideology required a comm unal sleeping arrangement for children. The author emphasizes the impo rtance of the function of holding at the stage of absolute dependence that facilitates the establishment of integration and satisfactory dev elopment of the ego. The author discusses the problematic holding envi ronment for the patients discussed in the paper when the kibbutz ideol ogy led to separation of young infants from their parents' homes and t o their placement in collective children's houses under the care of ot her kibbutz members. Most of the cases under discussion in this paper are young adults who chose to leave the kibbutz and immediately entere d psychoanalysis. The author presents the hypothesis that the intensiv e framework that psychoanalysis offers provides a holding environment and the continuous presence of the same person as a parental figure an d perhaps represents the patient's longing for something that was lost in childhood.