Object relations, Holocaust survival and family therapy.
The authors focus on a family therapy, construing the process of change within an object-relations theory integrated with psychodynamic thoughts about Holocaust survivors. Specifically, the authors concentrate on the mutual influence of parents and their children as figures for a two-way identification, and on the potential constructive role the offspring may have in promoting change, in this case reparative change, in the family. A clinical illustration of such a family treated by one of the authors illustrates this aspect. The disturbed intra-familial relationships in the history of each parent led to the development of pathological internalized object relations. This was reinforced by traumatic life-events, especially with the father who was a Holocaust survivor. Serious problems developed in marital life and in relation with the children. Couple therapy alone did not seem successful. The couple who lived in a sado-masochistic collusion for years could not change. Only after including the children in the therapy did the family's relations improve. Confrontation with some positive aspects of the family which the children represent may have been a factor in this change. The couple were able to resynthesize and integrate positive aspects of themselves as represented and reinforced by their children. It seems that reparation through the children helped modify all relations in the family.
Müller
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F. Brüll Community Mental Health Center, Tel-Aviv University Medical School, Israel.
Yahav
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D000293:Adolescent; D003209:Concentration Camps; D005196:Family Therapy / Q000379:methods; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007557:Israel; D007585:Jews / Q000523:psychology*; D008297:Male; D008388:Marital Therapy / Q000379:methods; D008875:Middle Aged; D009769:Object Attachment; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010553:Personality Development; D011330:Prisons; D013534:Survival