The Subjective Impact of Separation and Divorce on a Latency-Aged Child and His Analysis

ABSTRACT

I present the analysis of a latency-aged child whose parents separated about one-and-a-half years into treatment and subsequently divorced. Even prior to his parents’ announcement, the patient was preoccupied by intense anxieties about separation and abandonment. Such anxieties were exacerbated by the dissolution of his parents’ marriage and of his familiar family constellation. I begin with a brief overview of the child’s early development, the recommendation for analysis, and the initial phase of treatment. I then focus on process material from a two-year span following the parental separation. My aim is to illuminate the child’s subjective experience of parental separation and divorce and my analytic efforts to help him represent, communicate, and understand it.

KEYWORDS:

• Child psychoanalysis
• latency
• divorce
• parental separation

Acknowledgments

I express gratitude to Linda Helmig Bram, Judy Kantrowitz, and especially “Justin” and his family. I dedicate this paper in fond memory of Dr. Irwin Rosen, who supervised my work with this child and family.

Notes

1. Identifying information has also been disguised in the service of confidentiality.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anthony D. Bram

Anthony D. Bram, PhD, ABAP is an adult and child psychoanalyst in private practice in Lexington, MA. He is also on the faculty of the Boston Psychoanalytic Society and Institute and at Cambridge Health Alliance/Harvard Medical School.