by S. Robert Moradi, M.D.
January 1997
Beginnings
As the baby begins to take the first few steps away from the mother, the first "other" he or she usually encounters is the father. The connection with the mother was established long ago. This new connection with the father creates an imbalance in the family system affecting all players. The pregnancy and birth of a child, although culturally celebrated and consciously welcomed by the father, hallmarks the beginning of a profound psychological transformation in the man's adult life. He is forced to expand in ways that he could not have been prepared for by intellectual process. The experience of the new father, if not blocked or distorted by psychological defenses, represents a significant alteration in his self-concept.
As pregnancy evolves, the husband begins to lose the emotional centrality position with his wife. When the baby is born the father finds himself No. 2 or the outsider to both mother and baby. The love affair is between mother and child. Ashamed of his competition with the baby and feeling betrayed by his wife, he feels unloved, unacknowledged and useful only for providing the needs of the dyad. At the same time, he may be confronted with the emergence of his own unresolved childhood conflicts.
The psychological impact of this triangulation is manifold. If mourning the loss of how the relationship was with his wife, and awareness of the good aspects of becoming a father are not adequately provided for, the man will cope in familiar ways to survive the assault. For instance, one man might work hard and unconsciously try to gain his wife back into the dyad by doing better and more of what he knows how; another man might give up and finds solace in an affair or substances; yet another might compensate by creating his own "baby," e.g., building, inventing, producing and expanding in the physical or spiritual world.
Toddlership
It is somewhere within this context that the baby becomes a toddler and begins to walk to the father. This is the beginning of the potential of an independent relationship between father and child. This relationship has to be sanctioned and often encouraged by the mother. Toddlership is a major psychological reorganization of the triangle. It requires mother's conscious acceptance and readiness to share the baby with the father; trust in the potential that father's involvement will provide for a developmental step in the psyche of the child and the mother; and that mother and father have recognized and worked through the loss of their exclusivity. It requires parents' acceptance of a full-blown triangular relationship, i.e., a crucial intrapsychic transformation within each parent as well as reconfiguration of their relationship with each other and with the world.
Father's role in preparing the background for the connection demands his flexibility. He needs to let go of his internal and external coping mechanisms to provide physical and psychological space for the often "irrational, uncompromising, fickle, messy, tyrannical, demanding and self-centered individual" called the toddler. Not an easy task.
Male Cultural Roles
A frequent male experience in industrialized societies is psychological abandonment due to cultural pressure for young boys to separate from their mothers, while girls can continue to be part of the "kitchen" in the maternal world. As mothers push their young sons away to learn their "maleness," there is usually neither a father nor any other male to mentor the boy. The main defensive reaction of the discarded boy is detachment from the needy self inside, and donning a mask for an invulnerable man.
This mask is used in an unconscious effort to shield the boy from the humiliation of having been abandoned. In other words, a false self begins to emerge to counteract such intense emotions as fear of physical disintegration or the dread of psychological humiliation. The false self is reinforced in many cultures such as ours by positive approval and social value assigned to emotional detachment in men in favor of their pursuit of power and wealth. There are intrapsychic blocks unique to men. These blocks have their foundation in feelings of humiliation, shame and repressed rage. Boys in postindustrial Western culture at an early age are separated from their elder men. Young men are left to find their path without guides or mentors. Close physical and emotional bonds have been with the mother, but staying attached to her, or returning to her, is filled with societal humiliation. These men, in their relationships with their wives, establish a maternal transference toward the wife. This displaced psychological phenomenon and the unconscious threat of the repeat of the original abandonment forces them to attempt to control her either by clinging on to her or defending against the need for connection with her by staying distant.
It is within this context that the father experiences the baby as a rival. The new father may feel excluded, unsafe and angry, but he is often unconscious and/or ashamed of these feelings. The unconscious feelings of anger can be acted out in the community in the form of abuse and/or neglect of the weak and the needy. Within the family the victims are often the children. The most central target of destructive forces, however, is the psyche (soul) and, inevitability, the soma of the person who carries the unconscious conflict and rage.
Deep-seated feelings of inadequacy about how to become "a man" and how to protect the family are other sources of internal rage in many men. The rage that is frequently projected to the outside world. The false-self man, now the father who carries childhood feelings of being unwanted, is frightened of his inability to survive and ashamed of his inadequacies as the one who should "protect" his family.
The group process can be an effective measure in reducing male shame by providing a safe space for unconscious rage. The connection of group members to each other and a healthy transference toward the group facilitators provide a context for exploration of the members' emotional deprivation as well as intrapsychic and interpersonal conflicts. Compassion from paternal substitutes provides the potential for a "corrective emotional experience."
Psychodynamic Tools
As clinicians, when we observe an excessive focus on the "dangers" from outside the family, we wonder about and suggest to the group member the possibility of projection of the person's unconscious internal rage and fear. A psychodynamic group for fathers attempts to identify the projections and confront the denial of the "beasts and monsters" inside the family which manifest in forms such as sadness, anger, jealousy, envy and shame. For example, a 3-year-old's nightmares can be the child's fear of the rage inside the family, whether it is the father's unconscious rage toward the child and/or the mother; mother's anger with the father and/or the child; or the child's own rage manifesting as the monsters in his sleep.
An underlying construct of the psychodynamic process with father-child groups is that the protective task of fathering should include protection of the family against the unconscious destructiveness within the parents. The protective task of the father could be identified and worked with in the group as his role in handling the day-to-day fears, inadequacies and conflicts that are inevitable inside the home. The protective role of the father then serves to create a sense of internal safety and security within the psyche of the members of the family. Father's task is to bring conflict to discussion without fear of retaliation from those with more power. Without this protective shield, the family will be in chaos. Unfairness can go unchecked and a fertile environment is created for neglect and abuse of the weaker members of the family. There are situations where the father's sense of protection can become an unconscious tool for projection and denial.
Father-Toddler Group Structure
The group meets every other Sunday in the playground of the Early Childhood Center, a community resource program under a section of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. The majority of the fathers are referred by their wives through Mommy and Me groups. All the men except one are married. They are Caucasian, educated and socio-economically represent the upper middle class.
The fathers and their children spend the first 15 to 20 minutes in the outdoor playground with each other until the children are at ease in the setting. Fathers talk casually with each other and staff. This time period provides opportunities for staff to view the father-child relationship and interactions. The observations are then used in making interpretations of behavior and clarifications for the child and the father.
The initial group consisted of eight fathers (ranging in age from 28 to 54) and 10 toddlers (with two sets of twins). The staff's orientation is psychodynamic, comprised of two male group facilitators and three or four female and male child development specialists.
Fathers engage in group discussion for one hour at which time the child development specialists join the fathers for feedback regarding their observations of the children and provide opportunities for dialogue between staff and fathers.
Group Dynamics
Fathers in the group speak of not knowing their child as well as they wish, and not being known by their children. A common fear expressed is that of not being an adequate provider and protector of their child. Most fathers share the burden of having to work full-time and not having energy and playfulness by the time they get home. Once home, they feel responsible to relieve the mother by stepping into an arena unfamiliar to them: what to feed, how to change, how to soothe, how to play and engage with their children. Fathers find themselves coming home in a condition similar to their children, i.e., they too need their rest, are hungry and need to be soothed and engaged.
"After I spend two to three hours, she's finally in bed...This is my life and I have no time to myself...I am totally exhausted," many fathers report. The men grieve the loss of their life before their children. A repeated phrase heard in the group is, "I never have a moment to talk with my wife." Often they feel in competition with the baby-deprived and inadequate at the same time. They juxtapose how impotent they feel at home and how competent at work.
Fathers struggle together and talk about how they can't comfort their babies or differentiate cries. They talk of their resentment of the child waking them in the middle of the night, the loss of intimacy with their wives since the baby was born, and their guilt and shame when they find themselves angry and "lose it" with the child. As the fathers talk to one another they see the commonality of their anger and frustration and this aids in the reduction of their shame.
A primary benefit of father-child groups is to the father. The group can enhance the father-child connection, making it less likely for the father to abandon the child and additionally provide a context in which unconscious rage can be identified. The father, in learning how to care for his child, can nurture his own "internal child" and thereby care for his own infantile needs. This would assist the father in developing empathic responses to his child rather than acting out his unconscious feelings of shame and anger.
Dr. Moradi currently is in private practice of adult, child and adolescent psychiatry, teaches psychodynamic family therapy at Reiss-Davis Child Study Center, and is assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the UCLA School of Medicine.
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