Psychic Self-Exile: The Infantile Parent and the Erased Child

This article proposes a connection between the infantile parent and the schizoid child. Infantile love is described as ruthless: envious, greedy and demanding. The author suggests that the schizoid child fends off the infantile parent’s “love” by disappearing: if the child cannot be seen, then she cannot be attacked. A case illustration is provided wherein a young woman, raised by an infantile mother, disappears via two unconscious self-states; a perpetually anxious erased-self, and a rageful, despairing exiled-self. Diffuse and uncertain, the erased-self was a fog that the infantile mother could not penetrate. Nonverbal and rageful, the exiled-self diminished her relationships. Both self-states cemented the young woman’s psychic disappearance—becoming an effective, if self-depriving, defense against the infantile mother’s threat. The author asserts that acknowledging the true threat of the infantile mother in the transference enabled the dyad to dispel the fog of the erased-self, and to integrate the exiled-self.