Father/Mother Figure

[rabbit]

I was wondering who was the psychologist who first said that we need a father/mother firgure in our lives. I hear people make excuses for their behavior due to a lack of a father or mother figure in their lives. Where does this belief that where need some type of mother/father figure come from?

I think maybe these people are taking what this psychologist said out of context.

I posted this thread for someone to point me in the right direction for more research. I don't want to believe someone's theory about something without hearing it from the source. I don't want to assume that thats just the way things are.

 

[Andy Moynihan]

Freud.

 

[rabbit]

Do you agree or disagree with what he says?

 

[still learning]

Hello, All children need role models, to form there behaivors and personalitys.

Many times it will be either the Dad or Mother or both that forms each child. A child can also adopted a person who they feel they want to be too!

Many martial artist have role models to follow or believe in when training!

When Black people or white people learn to hate each other...their own kids learn to hate too....hense never ending of colors hating.

Teach people to hate Jews...their kids will grow up to hate Jews....

Teach people to hate AMERICANS or America? ...their kids will learn this too!

Kids look to Adults as "god like" and will want to become like them! ...a natural process of learning.

Are you a good model for your family? ..Kids, friends? ...and fellow martial artist? and at work too?

Role your own boat...........Aloha (role playing is NOT acting..it must be real, honest and geniune)

 

[Kacey]

Do you agree or disagree with what he says?

Yes. Freud's theories are wide-reaching and complex, and there are parts I agree with and parts I disagree with.

 

[Empty Hands]

Harlow performed a landmark set of experiments in the 50's using infant rhesus monkeys. He found that a mother figure, even one made out of wire and cloth, was absolutely required for the normal psychosocial development of the monkeys. The less lifelike the "mother" became, the more screwed up the monkeys were with time.

There are also a variety of natural experiments that shed some light. Abandoned children that have grown up feral or infants raised in the overcrowded contact-free environment of the Romanian orphanage have also demonstrated in humans the necessity of some sort of parental contact and figure for normal development.

FWIW, I tend to believe these empirical studies far more than the theorizing of psychologists like Freud which had little-to-no empirical backing.

 

[still learning]

Hello, Our growth and personality's are form from those around us or who we see on tv,books,videos, etc....our lives are influence by those who we believe in!

Being a Father or Mother? ...is a learn process...some learn the wrong things. Some never grow-up to be a mature person. (self-fish)

When you have kids (yours or others-students)...it is our JOB to be a excellant role model for others!

There is only one way to change the world? ...each of us have to raise excellant kids, unprejudice, kind,honesty,humble,trustworthy, giving, loyal, hardworking, (learns not to be told..but to act). WE MUST FIRST START WITH OURSELVES....TO GROW UP AND BE A MATURE ACTING PERSON!

Aloha ( growing up? ..is a learning process.)

 

[exile]

Harlow performed a landmark set of experiments in the 50's using infant rhesus monkeys. He found that a mother figure, even one made out of wire and cloth, was absolutely required for the normal psychosocial development of the monkeys. The less lifelike the "mother" became, the more screwed up the monkeys were with time.

There are also a variety of natural experiments that shed some light. Abandoned children that have grown up feral or infants raised in the overcrowded contact-free environment of the Romanian orphanage have also demonstrated in humans the necessity of some sort of parental contact and figure for normal development.

FWIW, I tend to believe these empirical studies far more than the theorizing of psychologists like Freud which had little-to-no empirical backing.

Freud was extrapolating from late 19th c. Vienna to the whole of the human condition... always a mistake! :lol:

An interesting sidelight on this is that, as I recall from a couple of studies in the 1940s, psychologists who studied matrilineal societies found an amusing disconfirmation of Freud's analysis of Oedipal conflict. In matrilineal societies, descent is reckoned through the mother's line... but men still hold the power. It follows that the authority figure in matrilineages is not the father, but the mother's brother.... and it was precisely the mother's brother who the child had the same kind of conflicts with that Freud attributed to the Oedipal triangle. Except, of course, that that hypothesis was based on the idea of the child's resentment of the father's sexual access to the mother... which doesn't exist in the matrilineal situation. So it looks like Oedipal conflict is not about sexual competition and infantile sexuality, as Freud thought, but rather about authority. That's the common factor in the two situations, and it looks like authority, not sexuality, was the basis of the hostile fantasies and other expressions of child/male adult conflict that Freud incorrectly accounted for using the Oedipus story as metaphor.

Just goes to show, you have to be, um, skeptical of your conclusions and look for the cases which might represent challenges to them, eh?

 

[Empty Hands]

Just goes to show, you have to be, um, skeptical of your conclusions and look for the cases which might represent challenges to them, eh?

Thanks for that story, very interesting. An object lesson we would all do well to pay attention to.

 

[Steel Tiger]

An interesting sidelight on this is that, as I recall from a couple of studies in the 1940s, psychologists who studied matrilineal societies found an amusing disconfirmation of Freud's analysis of Oedipal conflict. In matrilineal societies, descent is reckoned through the mother's line... but men still hold the power. It follows that the authority figure in matrilineages is not the father, but the mother's brother.... and it was precisely the mother's brother who the child had the same kind of conflicts with that Freud attributed to the Oedipal triangle. Except, of course, that that hypothesis was based on the idea of the child's resentment of the father's sexual access to the mother... which doesn't exist in the matrilineal situation. So it looks like Oedipal conflict is not about sexual competition and infantile sexuality, as Freud thought, but rather about authority. That's the common factor in the two situations, and it looks like authority, not sexuality, was the basis of the hostile fantasies and other expressions of child/male adult conflict that Freud incorrectly accounted for using the Oedipus story as metaphor.

Its very interesting to look at Freud's work with reference to the Westermark Effect between siblings. This effect suggests that children raised together do not develop attraction to each other, while those who are raised apart (segregated by sex) might. Given Freud's 19th century household there is a good chance that he and his siblings wereraised by a nanny or governess rather than their parents. It might explain a lot about old Sigmund and his obsessions.

The Oedipal Conflict being about authority gels well with some research I am doing at the moment about a particular Indo-European myth story concerning conflict between fathers and sons. Some small discussion of that:

http://www.martialtalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=59624

Harlow's work was monumental in this area of psychology and well worth a read (if you are interested in psychology). For myself, I come at psychology from a slightly different angle. That is its relationship to religion and to myths specifically.

The mother/father figure is something we have lost in our wonderfully developed HD TV, I-Pod, I-Phone, society. There is a staggering disrespect for age nowadays. Trends and fads in society change so rapidly younger people have difficulty seeing how their parents could possibly relate to them or what they do. It will lead inevitably to a fulfillment of Santayana's prophecy.