Homesickness: Its Particular Relevance to Children of Separation and Divorce

ABSTRACT

This article addresses the similar effects on the very young child of abrupt weaning after breastfeeding, and overnight parenting access with the father when the mother is the primary caretaker and the child is primarily attached to the mother’s home as their home. The role of the young child’s unconscious fantasies is considered, particularly in perceiving the mother in these situations as rejecting, hostile and persecutory towards the young child, as well as the short-term and long-term effects of these early experiences on child, adolescent and adult development. The conflict existing between the application of sound psychoanalytic child development theory and research and the legal Best Interests of the Child standard is raised for discussion. Finally, how these adverse experiences impact on the creation and use of nostalgia are addressed.

KEYWORDS:

• Homesickness
• separation/divorce
• breastfeeding/weaning
• overnight parenting access
• abandonment
• fantasies
• nostalgia

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to Vivian Eskin, Ph.D., who introduced me to Melanie Klein’s contributions on weaning and the role of the young child’s unconscious fantasy life in how such developmental experiences are internalized. I also wish to acknowledge Anice Jeffries for her important questions raised regarding the concept of home and home-base, which took place in multiple communications while writing this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

¹ These mothers were not patients of mine. They consulted me solely due to the extreme distress manifested by their young children. The children ranged in age from 10 to 24 months. The pilot study consisted of 4 boy and 4 girls, all first-born children. Fathers were not participants in the pilot study since the focus was on the distressed infants/toddlers in the homes of their primary caretakers. According to these mothers, the fathers did not notice any signs of distress when their infants/toddlers were with them.

² Krystal’s (1978) seminal paper on early trauma reveals going to sleep as a defense against trauma.

³ Different authors have observed young children’s separations from their mothers under very different circumstances and for very different periods of time. However, the responses of the young children seem similar.

⁴ The author is not addressing situations where infants and young children live half-time with each parent since the beginning of the child’s life. Situations addressed in this article refer to primary time with the mother and the introduction of greater increments of time with the father.

⁵ Since the young children I referred to in my pilot study were only beginning to be verbal, it was not possible to know that children experienced spending time with their father and going to their father’s home as their mother not loving them. I had the opportunity to follow up on these children as they became more verbal, and it was at a later time that some of the children expressed their concern that their mothers did not love them and that is why they were sent away from their mother’s home to their father.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Linda Gunsberg

Linda Gunsberg, Ph.D., is Co-Chair of the Psychoanalysis and Law Discussion Group of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Also, she is a consulting editor for the journal, Psychoanalytic Inquiry. From 1997–2020, she created and was chair of the Family Law and Family Forensics Training Program at Washington Square Institute, which offered an interdisciplinary approach to working with families within the Court system. Dr. Gunsberg has co-edited and written chapters in the volumes, A Handbook of Divorce and Custody: Forensic, Developmental, and Clinical Perspectives; Fathers and Their Families; and Psychoanalytic Theory, Research, and Clinical Practice: Reading Joseph D. Lichtenberg. Recently, she has contributed to and was editor of a section on separation and divorce in the journal, Psychoanalytic Study of the Child (2019). For Psychoanalytic Inquiry, Dr. Gunsberg has co-edited and contributed to the journal issues: Separation-Individuation Revisited; The Psychoanalyst in the Courtroom; and The Adoption Journey. Dr. Gunsberg received her psychoanalytic training at the New York University Postdoctoral Training Program in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis. In her private practice, she sees children of all ages and adults.