Freud_Burlingham_1943_War_and_Children_k_text

ig or small that loss may be, the fact remainsthat normally the withdrawal of emotional interestwill be temporary and the child will returnsooner or later to good relations with theoutside world. It is different in cases where,through a series of unlucky circumstances,thechild has to change hands more than once ortwice so that its new attachments are againwasted, and it is deprived of its new objectsas soon as they are found. Its relations topeople will then become more and more superficialand abnormal reactions of some kind willcertainly follow. We were able to observetwo cases of this kind.Johnny had changed his place of living severaltimes between the age of two and three,He had never been separated from his motherup to the age of two, and spent 14 months ofthat time alone with her after father had beendrafted into the army. His wanderings beganwhen his mother fell ill with tuberculosis andwent into a hospital. She once returned fromthe hospital because she heard that he was unhappyin the place where she had left him.She took him home to her relatives in the hopethat she would be able to leave him there.Since all her sisters had gone out on war workthere was nobody to leave him with, and sheagain found a private billet in the country. Sheleft him there to return to the hospital. In the80