Pushkina, N. V. Grown-up Daughters of Divorced Parents – Psycho-Traumatic Influence of Divorce in Psychoanalytic Theory

Abstract: The author of the article describes a psychoanalytical view on the personality development and life style of women who experienced the divorce of their parents when they were children. The author proves that triad relations plays a very important role in a child’s development starting from the first year of life. A father is always present in a child’s life, either physically when he plays or talks to a child and by doing so, helps a child to adopt the model of interaction with an object which is different from a mother’s model, or mentally through a mother’s image of her husband when she is satisfied with her family relations and therefore can focus on a child’s care, or traumatized by her relations and therefore focus only on her emotional state and family problems. A father is the figure who helps a child to go through the stages of separation and individuation. He acts as a mediator when a child understands the emotional constant of an abject and a father also plays an important role in a successful completion of a girl’s process of identification. Grown-up girls of divorced parents often suffer from depression. They act anxiously in their interpersonal relations and have difficulty managing their feelings of guilt and aggression. They mistrust men and at the same time they tend to idealize the image of a true man and romantic relations. As a result, they get disappointed in their partner and have a divorce in their family, too. Analysis of theoretical sources on the matter has also shown a lack of Russian researches in this sphere.

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