Mother’s Past, Child’s Future

When working with children and parents in the psychotherapy process, one of the most frequently encountered problems is that the parent has difficulty assuming the ideal self-object task, even if it is taught. When working with parents, the psychotherapist makes analyzes and evaluations about the family dynamics. After applying various tests and clinical interviews, therapist comes up with a formulation and the therapy process is based on that. Initially the family is informed about the therapist’s observations and a psycho-education program, which is designed for the family’s specific needs, is started. Our clinical experience shows us that in some cases psycho-education program by itself is not sufficient to resolve the problem. Once we investigate deeper, we find out that the mother’s past and her object relations are triggered through her relationship with her child. Therefore becoming more educated via psycho-education is overshadowed by the traces of the mother’s upbringing. In this paper we aim to show child related problems are resolved better when working with the mother individually. Pscho-education program becomes more effective when the mother starts her own individual therapy and work on her own object relations and attachment history. By providing case studies from our clinical experience, we aim to show how working through with the mother’s past with an integrative psychotherapy approach contributes to child recovery. When using an integrative approach we use; Psychodynamic Theory (Freud, Erikson), Object Relations Theory (Klein, Kernberg, Masterson), Attachment Theory (Bowlby, Ainsworth), Emotion Focused Therapy (Greenberg), and Self Psychology (Kohut)