His mother was a compelling figure, the center of the household, who indulged Steve as long as he did not question her, but ignored him when he did. We might say she was there as an âobject-motherâ but erratic as an âenvironment-mother.â This created a big problem for him. There was no room for integrating his anger in this relationship, no possibility of Steveâs mom ever admitting a flaw, and no acknowledgment of Steveâs independent point of view. The natural give-and-take of a mother-child relationship, in which both parent and child get disappointed with one another but learn to tolerate, and forgive, on the road to becoming
interpenetrating centers never happened.
Steve, we began to see, was never given the chance to work productively with his own aggression. It was as if he had no guidance through the inevitable disappointments of early life.