Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

forced to live in poor and dingy surroundings.On the part of the child these phantasies areattempts to deal with the whole range of conflictingemotions towards the parents. Love,hate, admiration, criticism, and even contemptfor the parents are worked out in them.Whenevacuation occurs at this time of life the factof being billeted with foster parents of a differentsocial level may be upsetting to thechild because it gives sudden and undesiredreality to a situation which was meant to belived out in the realms of phantasy.The psychological problem of the fostermother is evident even to those who otherwiserefuse to take psychological complicationstoo seriously.Possessiveness of the mother is,as we know, an important factor in the motherchildrelationship. The child starts its lifeas one part of the mother's body. Insofar asthe feelings of the mother are concerned itremains just that for several years. Egoisticreactions of the mother normally include thechild. Harm to the child is resented by themother as if it were harm done to herself.Every human being normally over-estimates hisown importance, his own personality and hisown body. This overestimation on the part ofthe mother also includes the child. Thisexplains why an infant who is neither goodlookingnor clever may still seem to possess39