Needed Research in Parent-Child Fixation

Abstract

THE IDEA of parent-child fixation doubtT less comes from Freud though he seldom or never used the term. For him, the Oedipus Complex was an instinctive and therefore specific and universal form of libido fixation. FlUgel uses the term often and may be largely responsible for its widespread currency. However, the literature contains little rigorous or systematic discussion of the concept. It is commonly used without definition, as if everyone knew its meaning; its implications are not developed; very little careful research has been done. As is true of so much social theory, the general idea of parent-child fixation is found in folklore and colloquial expressions.2 Freud recognized this and found a good Greek myth to typify it. However, one does not need to go to the Greeks. Parental fixation is suggested by such phrases as mama's darling, sissy, tomboy, apron strings, too big for his britches, chip off the ole block, just like his father (or mother), dad can lick your dad, dad is the richest, smartest, strongest, etc., man in the world, I am I owe to my dear old mother, childhood is the happiest time of one's life, and so on. Many proverbs express similar ideas somewhat more sententiously. While not so dramatic as a gory Greek myth, much of this folk-talk probably is closer to social reality. Many adult users of these sayings believe the inherits the traits in question. Most studies of problem children at the turn of the century were based on heredity and instinct under the influence of the recapitulation theory and the then current concepts of biological evolution. little later, mental testing, Mendelian genetics, the semi-mystical instinct theories of MacDougall, and the instinctual psychoanalysis of Freud all contributed to delay the present trend toward a sociological explanation of personality formation and deformation. In i896, E. W. Bohannon made an extensive study of peculiar children. He implied that their traits were almost wholly inherited. In this study, he discovered something which led to his famous paper, Only Child in a Family (i898). Many mothers, school teachers, social workers, and even some social psychologists are still suffering from the effects of this paper, even as they still suffer from Freud and mental testing. Bohannon thought children were the result of procreative weakness and probably were biologically handicapped thereby.3 Whatever may have been true in the nineties, it is almost certainly true today that children are not due to procreative weakness. It probably is true that most of the social and biological traits of Bohannon's children were due to socioeconomic status and parent-child relations rather than to anything biologically or sociologically inherent in the only child situation. We now know that children are not doomed either to social maladjustment or biological inferiority.4 1J. C. Fligel, The Psycho-Analytical Study of the Family. London: International Psycho-Analytical Press, 1921, esp. 226 ff. As early as page 5I, he states that parent-fixation is a common usage for the Oedipus-Electra (cross-sex) form of fixation. 2 some time, I have been working on a paper which attempts to show that many psychopathic and some sociopathic concepts have counterparts in the partial truths of folklore, adage, proverb, slang, and cliche. Much of these sayings is obvious nonsense but there is also muGh sound observation in this folk psychopathology and therapy. similar relation exists between weatherwisdom and meteorology. See W. J. Humphreys, Weather Proverbs and Paradoxes. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1923. 'E. W. Bohannon, A Study of Peculiar and Exceptional Children, Pedagogical Seminary and Journal of General Psychology. October, 1896, 4: 3-60; Only Child in a Family, ibid., April, I898, 5:475-496. 4Norman Fenton, Only Child, Journal of General Psychology. December, I928, 446-456. The best general summary of the literature on this subject I have seen is in Jessie Bernard, American