On fathering (the nature and functions of the father role). Part II: Conceptualization of fathering.

Abstract

The scientific study of fathering has been somewhat neglected, perhaps because the father role is hardly constant even within a particular culture and is subject to very great fluctuations indeed from culture to culture. In that respect the study of fathering is much more difficult than the study of mothering. Work often subsumed under the heading of "attachment theory" has shown that the mother-infant and mother-child relationships have some cross-cultural constancy and may even be described as a bio-social "given". Four methods of data collection are described and reviewed: studies of adults partially or fully deprived of adequate fathering during their childhoods; direct studies of father-infant and father-child interaction; "in-depth" psychoanalytic studies of individual psychopathology in relation to that individual's relationship to a father; and introspection and personal observation. Each of these four avenues of data collection offers certain advantages as well as certain disadvantages which are reviewed with examples from available literature. In studying the importance of the father role there is a tendency to study the importance of fathering to children, ignoring that fathering is clearly important to the psychological development and further growth of the father. That there is a psychopathology of the process of fatherhood seems obvious on reflection, and data bearing on that psychopathology are reviewed. The importance of fathering to infants and children can be reviewed according to the three areas of psychic activity: primary creativity, the basic fault, and the Oedipus conflict. In the area of primary creativity we can study the importance of fathering to infants in terms of fantasied fathers and part-time fathers, and the prenatal role of father as mother facilitator. In the area of the basic fault (two-person psychology) we can study the postnatal role of father as mother facilitator, the role of father as mother-surrogate, the pre-oedipal role of father in the determination of gender identity, the role of father in "healing by second intent", and the importance of father in separation-individuation. In the area of the Oedipus conflict (three-person psychology) we can study the role of father in the infant's resolution of the oedipus complex and the development of superego, the importance of father as a role model for post-oedipal identification, the relation of father-absence to anti-social behaviour, the role of father in fostering cognitive and general development and growth, and the role of father in the further formation of adult personality. This two-part concludes with a review of the importance of improved understanding of the father role in clinical work.