The disturbing presence of the father: Paternal function and its initial developments

Abstract

The birth of a child strongly influences the way in which we adults perceive life and, therefore, our inner world. This birth, or rather the expectation of it, initiates in the father a complex process, the paternal function. Despite being a common experience, there are many open questions regarding its development and its impact on the new father. We reflect here on paternal function and explore conscious and unconscious fantasies of the man facing new-found fatherhood. We propose that a kind of pre-Oedipal process has already begun during pregnancy. The new being’s mere existence inside the womb generates an exclusionary force that sets the father’s ambivalent feelings in motion. The overwhelming certainty of motherhood and the generation of the mother–fetus bubble develops in parallel with the uncertainty of the father, immersed in inner conflicts regarding what his relationship with the mother–child couple is and will be. He rapidly experiences how the child’s presence makes him an excluded third party, always longing to fully occupy the place he once enjoyed beside the mother. The baby enters a world where father’s strong ambivalence is already in place, facilitating and setting in motion a full development of the Oedipal process. Finally, some considerations are outlined on the potential influence of this complex ambivalence in large group reactions and the need to be remembered that humans have displayed since ancient historical times.

• Key words: paternal function
• pre-Oedipal
• exclusion
• ambivalence

Acknowledgement

Authors thank Sofia Alvarez de Eulate MD and Eduardo Ruiz MD for their suggestions and comments.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Torres

Authors

Miguel Angel Gonzalez-Torres, MD, PhD, is a training analyst at the Centro Psicoanalítico de Madrid and also works at the department of neuroscience of the University of the Basque Country, and the psychiatry service of Basurto University Hospital, Bilbao, Spain. His main clinical and research interests are psychosis and personality disorder, especially psychoanalytic approaches to these problems.

Aranzazu Fernandez-Rivas

Aranzazu Fernandez-Rivas MD, PhD, is a child and adolescent psychiatrist and psychotherapist, and also works at the department of neuroscience of the University of the Basque Country and the psychiatry service of Basurto University Hospital, Bilbao, Spain. Her clinical work and research activities focus on conduct and personality disorders in adolescents.