Abstract
The author accepts the concept of symbiotic identification between the chronic schizophrenics and their mothers. However he feels that the term schizophrenogenic mother is a poor one as it tends to overemphasize the role of the mother alone in producing schizophrenia in her child. He makes the point that the role of the father has been too neglected in the psychiatric literature and agrees with Marie Bonaparte's* comments that “psychiatrists have killed the father in the psychiatric literature.” The role of the father as contributing to the maintenance of the illness of male chronic schizophrenics is studied through a clinical experience in which group psychotherapy is conducted with a group of 23 male chronic schizophrenics and another group with their fathers and mothers. This clinical experience is reported extensively. In the discussion part of this paper, several points are made, with statistical data and review of the literature to support them: a) the absence of the father, whether it is a physical absence (death, divorce, long separation) or an emotional absence (lack of involvement as leader of the family unit) appears to contribute significantly to the illness of the son; b) if the child is to grow up independently, it is necessary that someone, a father substitute, do the specific job of stepping between mother and child to cut the symbiotic umbilical cord uniting them. Neither child nor mother can alone free themselves completely from the ties that join them; c) the point is made also of the necessity, in order to make therapeutic gains, to clarify without doubt the lines of authority among the people caring for the patient so that the confusion of roles could be dispelled and so that the pathological system of interaction going on in the families of schizophrenic patients could not be repeated among the personnel involved in caring for these patients, d) A last point is made concerning the fierce competition between mothers and schizophrenic children. The fathers and the therapist are seen by the schizophrenic children and their mothers as maternal figures, depriving as their own respective mothers were, and a fierce struggle goes on to obtain from these men as much as they can. This competitive struggle is intensified by the feeling that “there will not be enough for everybody around”.
It is postulated that if there had been a more present father, such a father could have prevented the mother from becoming so involved in a symbiotic fusion with her schizophrenic child. It is observed that when coping over a long period of time with the fantastic withdrawal and enormous demands of chronic schizophrenics, it is almost impossible to resist the temptation to stop making demands on them for improvement and to capitulate to the illness. Experienced therapists must find new ways to resist this temptation.