ABSTRACT
Psychotic parents divided into fathers and mothers, and are certain effects which concern only the mother-infant relationship, because this starts so early; or, if they concern the father, they concern him in his role of mother-substitute. It may be noted that is another role for a father, a more important one, in which he makes human something in the mother, and draws away from her the element which otherwise becomes magical and potent and spoils the mother's motherliness. Depression may be a chronic illness, giving a parent a poverty of available affect, or it may be a serious illness appearing in phases, with more or less sudden withdrawal of rapport. Children can deal, therefore, with mood swings in their parents by carefully observing them, but it is the unpredictability of some parents that can be traumatic. Once children comes through the earliest stages of maximal dependence.
