Publication Date
2015
Document Type
Masters Thesis
Department
School for Social Work
Keywords
Fatherless families, Fathers and sons, Adult children, Qualitative research, Father, Father absent, Mirroring, Emptiness, Negative
Abstract
This is an empirical, psychoanalytic inquiry designed to uncover what exists in the space for "father" when men grow up father absent. I interviewed 10 father absent men to find out how they conceptualized their personal representations of father and whether the conjured images played a material role in their lives. In light of the interviews, I contend that, regardless of circumstance, intrapsychic space exists for father. Building on Green (2004), I argue that father absent men have a combination of positive and negative space for father. Positive space is filled principally with directly experienced memories, and stories as recounted by others, particularly the mother, who is often a decisive figure in shaping the discourse on father. Positive space is filled with father mirroring memories, memories of tactile, mimetic experiences that serve as signposts for worldly engagement. Positive space is also filled by symbolic fathers, people and systems, who father feelings are displaced onto. Negative father space is empty. It is that which is not seen, symbolized, or mirrored by the father. Negative space is full, however, to the extent that negative space is recreated in the gaps of living, gaps particularly in arenas of fathering and loving
Language
English
Recommended Citation
Tisano, Frank P., "In the space of the father : father images, emptiness, and father mirroring in father absent men" (2015). Masters Thesis, Smith College, Northampton, MA.
https://scholarworks.smith.edu/theses/722
Comments
iii, 93 pages. Thesis (M.S.W.)--Smith College School for Social Work, 2015. Includes bibliographical references (pages 84-89)
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