| The purpose of this study is to deepen our understanding of the impact of the parent-child rupture resulting from maternal abuse/neglect and subsequent child removal on the internal world of the mother. Kleinian and Winnicottian models of the development of guilt and ambivalence offer a theoretical framework within which to understand not only the context for abuse but also the internal and external factors associated with a mother's capacity to sustain a sense of responsibility, concern, and desire to help herself and her child heal. A mother who has abused or neglected her child(ren) is faced with multiple losses of her child, autonomy, support, internalized good object, and self-as-good-mother. These losses, combined with a sense of hopelessness in her reparative capacities accentuated by her child's placement in foster care, reinforce Winnicott's malign circle in which the capacity to bear guilt is placed even further out of reach. The mother is often left to project her dangerous, guilty, unacceptable feelings onto her caseworker, relatives, or even her child in order to protect the little good that remains in her inner world. She may instead evade guilt by manically denying care for her objects, losing interest in participation either in treatment or reunification. Profound shame, along with unresolved conflicts around dependency and separation stemming from unmanageable guilt and ambivalence, can render the intimacy of individual treatment too threatening. A group treatment model is proposed as a relatively non-threatening milieu, uniquely situated to begin addressing some of the intra-psychic obstacles to a successful reunification. This study will illustrate how group treatment can decrease feelings of helplessness, introduce a less persecutory, more benign superego, and restore a sense of both maternal well-being and hopefulness in a mother's capacities for reparation. |
