ABSTRACT

In Greenson's last public lecture, the theme of obstacles and barriers to true intimacy and mutuality is explored further. Hildi Greenson feels that this lecture "concerned a need Greenson found in his patients which echoed his only partly unconscious desire to make people he cared about a member of his family. It was his foster-home fantasy of a haven where all hurts are mended." Greenson described a number of clinical situations involving grown people who have difficulty in setting up a new family, or in remaining with a new family, or are compelled to have many new families. He addressed many confusing contemporary psychosocial phenomena, including the turn to gurus or strange religions, teenage suicide, and the need for communes, and related them to the search for family security. In his conclusion he was again and forever the developmentalist: "People who search for families try to undo the effects of a bad family life. It is an acting out, to replace the unhappy past with a happy future. It is an attempt to ameliorate the unhappiness of the original family life. Sometimes it works and sometimes it fails. On an optimistic note, I can add, family life is good for your health. You live longer, both men and women. . . ."