The “Dead Mother Syndrome” and the Child in Care: A Framework for Reflecting on Why Some Children Experience Multiple Placement Breakdowns

Abstract

This paper is concerned with a subset of children in foster care who present as unable to use resources available to them. They make individuals involved with them feel inadequate and useless. Perhaps as a result of this, even from toddler-hood, these children experience serial disruption of foster placements. It is suggested that using Green's (1986) concept of the “dead mother syndrome” (whereby a child experiences a mother as physically present but emotionally dead) provides a useful framework to support both individual psychodynamic psychotherapy with the child and also a range of work with the team around the child.

Notes

1. Discussed further on page 353.

2. In the United Kingdom, since the Adoption and Children Act 2002, an Independent Reviewing Officer (IRO) must be appointed to participate in statutory reviews to ensure that a child whose interests had been protected during care proceedings by a Children's Guardian continue to have those interests protected once a care order has been made. It is the role of the IRO to ensure that the Local Authority in fulfilling its duties and functions takes a child's views into consideration.