IDENTITY CONFUSION, BISEXUALITY, AND FLIGHT FROM THE MOTHER

This paper deals with the effects of an oral-sadistic annihilating mot her on her male and female offspring: The all-powerful nature of these mothers, and the corresponding helplessness of the fathers, produce i n their offspring a sense of identity confusion, a struggle with their bisexuality, and a need to distance themselves from their mother. Eve rything unwanted in the mother is externalized onto and into the child , particularly suffering and pain, which are necessary for the mainten ance of the (pathological) mother-child relationship. Positive movemen t (i.e., success) on the child's part threatens the balance of this re lationship, is perceived by the child as a hostile and destructive tri umph over the mother, and causes the Negative Therapeutic Reaction in therapy. The child's inherent masochism acts to preserve the early inf antile omnipotence and bads to his/her assumption of all responsibilit y for the mother's affective states. The child's self-destructiveness also functions as a release for unconscious aggression toward the moth er, due to the back of boundary differentiation between the two. (C) 1 998 Elsevier Science Ltd.