Is there life without mother?

Clinical and literary materials are presented to illustrate the compulsive need some children (frequently abused and/or deprived ones) continue to fee l as they grow up for submission to and identification with the earliest pa rental figure. Intrapsychic loss is threatened by intense murderous hatred fet toward a parent without whom the child's survival is not possible. Conf licts over sadomasochistic fantasy, feeling, and action are used to hold on to the parent within and without the mind, and these can. dominate the chi ld's life.