THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE SENSE OF FAMILY

This paper deals with the development of the sense of family which is concommittant with the way in which persons acquire the inner picture of a family as a whole and as a system. The basic idea is that a child identifies not only with the most important dyadic and triadic object relationships, i.e. usually the relationships with the mother and the father and with the parents as a couple, but also with the "family as a whole". Identifications with the primary caregivers, the parents as a couple and one's own family enables a person to construct actively "family representations" which, in turn and in a further intrapsychic structural step shapes into "family identity". This intrapsychic struc ture formation gives the ego a specific ability namely an image and a sense of what a family is.