ABSTRACT
Frog's story represents one of the most emotionally painful experiences there is for a child: desperately wanting someone who does not want him, or desperately loving someone who does not love him. The psychoanalyst Fairbairn describes the infant whose love is unreciprocated as 'exploding ineffectively'. Infant–mother research shows that from two to six months old, faces are a baby's main interest and focus, particularly the faces of his parents. Tragically, some children who had 'faceless' mothers when they were babies continue to exhibit very withdrawn or apathetic behaviour in their school years. Some children yearn for a parent who is an 'absent presence'. This means that their parent is there physically, but, at crucial moments, emotionally absent. Separation anxiety means that, when apart from a person you love, you feel very anxious, often fearing that you will never see that person again; never be reunited; that something awful will happen to your loved one in the time apart.
