ABSTRACT

Ameliorative presences in the environment may help the orphaned child to muster enough strength to separate from primary objects and form an autonomous identity. All in all, atrophy, splitting, and repression are mechanisms that form a hierarchy in the inner processing of early aggression in parentally deprived individuals. Keeping this spectrum in mind has implications for the treatment of orphaned adults. The predominant therapeutic task with orphaned adults is, therefore, to create and sustain a proper "holding environment". The therapist must offer empathic resonance to the adult orphan's loss and its profound effects upon him. Adults who have been orphaned as children enter psychotherapy and psychoanalysis for reasons that are overtly unrelated to their childhood trauma. Important task in the treatment of orphaned adults involves discerning the moments when the lament of loss is serving a "screen" function and keeping even more troubling intrapsychic matters in abeyance.