Ideology, deprivation, and adolescence: A psychoanalytical, clinical point of view

This paper relates to some aspects and some moments in the disengagement and reengagement process in adolescence within the framework of kibbutz life. The data for this paper are based on observations of the internal representations and metaphoric understanding of adolescents and young adult kibbutz patients who were treated through psychoanalysis by the author or brought to her for supervision. The cases under discussion grew up on kibbutzim at a time when the ideology required a communal sleeping arrangement for children. The author emphasizes the importance of the function of holding at the stage of absolute dependence that facilitates the establishment of integration and satisfactory development of the ego. The author discusses the problematic holding environment for the patients discussed in the paper when the kibbutz ideology led to separation of young infants from their parents' homes and to their placement in collective children's houses under the care of other kibbutz members. Most of the cases under discussion in this paper are young adults who chose to leave the kibbutz and immediately entered psychoanalysis. The author presents the hypothesis that the intensive framework that psychoanalysis offers provides a holding environment and the continuous presence of the same person as a parental figure and perhaps represents the patient's longing for something that was lost in childhood.