The acquisition of autonomy, through benevolence, of children who are victims of domestic violence

From its etymology bene (good) and volens (will), benevolence means desire to do well. Benevolence is not an arbitrary notion or a theoretical apprehension. It unquestionably reveals man's humanism, which must combine in its daily practice and management with his fellow human beings and even with himself. In education, benevolence is crucial in mother-child relations. We believe that a mother must be benevolent, at the same time as; a child who has received the love of his mother (or parents) can love himself. This is a prerequisite for the acquisition of independent thought. The true cement of any family unit is the mutual love of all those who are called to live together. Paradoxically, love is not the foundation of all families. Unfortunately, there are dysfunctional families in which there are various and varied forms of violence. Children from this type of environment find themselves victims of abuse with all the possible traumatic consequences. Based on this observation, it is easy to reason by deduction: if family love conditions the acquisition of autonomy and children who are victims of family violence do not benefit from it within their families, then children who are victims of family violence are at a disadvantage in acquiring autonomy, or even that they cannot be autonomous. Thus, one may wonder to bring a child victim of family violence to the acquisition of his autonomy? What tools can be used to help a traumatized child become autonomous? How to rebuild a child who has suffered family trauma with a view to his or her autonomy? This article offers the reader benevolence, not as an instruction manual or prescription to be applied, but as a transferable and impactable posture.

Social and psychological characteristics of mother-child relations in family

The purpose of this research was to study the correlation between a child’s secure attachment and factors of maternal behavior. Sixty mother-child clusters were randomly selected from the groups who had at least one child within the age range of 1-5. The data gathering instruments included two questionnaires: Attachment Q-Sort [AQS] and Maternal Behavior Rating Scale. Prototype and hierarchical regression analysis [stepwise] were used to analyze the collected data. Results showed that there are positive and significant relationships between secure attachment of a child and factors of maternal behavior. Also, the data from the subscales indicated that there are positive and significant relationships between the child’s secure attachment with sensitivity, warmth and joy in the maternal behavior

The Collected Works of D. W. Winnicott

Volume 3 (1946–1951) begins with an introduction by the Italian analysts Vincenzo Bonaminio and Paolo Fabozzi and covers the difficult post-war situation in England and the foundation of the National Health Service. The volume includes papers on juvenile delinquency; critical interventions in debates on the physical treatment of mental disorder, in particular leucotomy and electroconvulsive therapy; and a selection of letters to colleagues, notable among which are those regarding Melanie Klein and the Kleinians within the British Society, and a series of letters to Roger Money-Kyrle on the possible inclusion of an article by him in the volume celebrating Klein’s 70th birthday. Volume 3 contains several important theoretical contributions to psychoanalysis that develop further his accounts of infantile development, mother–child relations and the effects of maternal depression, and aggression, and it sees the publication of the first spoken version of his most famous paper, ‘Transitional Objects and Transitional Phenomena’ [CW 3:6:6].

Mother–child relations in adulthood within and across national borders: non-Western immigrants in the Netherlands

ABSTRACTWe examined structures of (trans)national mother–child relationships in adulthood among non-Western immigrants in the Netherlands and assessed how acculturation impacted these intergenerational ties. From the Netherlands Kinship Panel Study, Turkish, Moroccan, Surinamese and Antillean respondents were selected whose mother lived in the Netherlands (N = 360) or abroad (N = 316). First, extending a previous typology of immigrant mother–child relations in the Netherlands, Latent Class Analysis was conducted for transnational relations. As expected, combining information about given and/or received emotional and financial support resulted in an emotional-interdependent and detached transnational mother–child relationship. Second, acculturation effects were estimated by using relationship assignment as a dependent variable, performing Logistic Regressions on our uni-national and transnational sample. Findings were mixed, suggesting acculturation impacts differently on family relations within and across borders. Overall, our results demonstrate the importance of reciprocal affective ties in a transnational context, also in the absence of financial or practical support, and show the relevance of distinguishing different facets of acculturation.

Against Matricide: Rethinking Subjectivity and the Maternal Body

In this article I critically re‐examine Julia Kristeva's view that becoming a speaking subject requires psychical matricide: violent separation from the maternal body. I propose an alternative, non‐matricidal conception of subjectivity, in part by drawing out anti‐matricidal strands in Kristeva's own thought, including her view that early mother–child relations are triangular. Whereas she understands this triangle in terms of a first imaginary father, I re‐interpret this triangle using Donald Winnicott's idea of potential space and Jessica Benjamin's idea of an intersubjective space of thirdness. I argue that this space provides a maternal third term: a relation of connection and difference between two, a relation that inherits the affective, mobile, generative qualities of the maternal body as the infant (according to Kristeva) imagines it. This connecting space allows both mothers and children to emerge as subjects in their own right. I then suggest that potential‐maternal space expands into language, so that language intrinsically allows the possibility of a speaking position of connection with the mother. Entrance into language need not entail separation or matricide: the problem is not language as such but the particular way that speech and logos have been defined historically.