ABSTRACT
Time and again I have seen malevolent relational distortions in blended families where one parent is impaired and the other, an opportunistic interloper. This is an attempt to apply archetypal thinking as a way of understanding these families and how the children are affected. It appeared in the September 1998 Psychiatric Times prefaced with the following disclaimer, which bears repeating:
"As I share a close friend's joy at launching his stepdaughter off to college, I wish to emphasize to my readers that the following exploration in no way generalizes to the majority of stepparents, who, like him, have done their job lovingly and well."
