Blended Family Psychoanalytic Perspective

Regarding the first theme, in both narratives, participants described their roles as challenging. I could observe this by paying attention to the tone of their voices. They spoke in a loud voice and stressed some parts when talking about the daily situations in their families. For example, in line 14 of the transcript in the interview with Sandra, she pronounced the word ‘organise’ in a loud voice, while in line 3 of the transcript in the interview with Leonard, he put a special emphasis on the word ‘challenging’. As a result, I can infer from both examples that their situation places them in unknown territories they are not comfortable with. With regard to feelings and emotions, both participants mentioned feeling nervous and anxious because …show more content…
At this point, we need to remember that both interviews were designed to shed light on my research question pertaining to the leading causes of disagreements in blended families. From the social psychoanalytic perspective, it is clear that the narratives allowed me an insight into the unconscious of my interviewees regarding how they project, introject ideas and take up positions in the narratives to show their concerns, thus revealing how their insertion in the social context creates meaning. During the interview with Leonard, I identified myself with his situation. As I am also a stepfather, I could grasp the whole dimension of the challenges he faces when he attempts to be a real father for his stepchild, to offer advice and be there for her. Particularly, Leonard projects his fears onto his stepdaughter when he says that ‘she does not talk to me openly’. In fact, he is unable to …show more content…
Overall, I can conclude that both Sandra and Leonard experience their situations as stepparents as challenging, but they differ in the way they explain how they try to adapt to the new familiar situation. In the case of Leonard, he puts the focus on making efforts to build an open dialogue towards his stepdaughter. He projects his fears onto his stepdaughter Kelly to reflect this difficulty of dialogue. At the same time, Leonard refers to a state of anxiety because again, he fears that this lack of confidence may lead to conflicts with his wife, thus disrupting the functioning of the whole family. On the other side, Sandra describes her situation as a stepmother as both challenging and enjoyable, saying that she needs time and space to adapt to her new situation. Sandra positions herself away from the idea that being a stepmother is stressful, and then focuses on the need for time to learn and adapt. In addition to this, my research found that stepchildren may alter their behaviour by becoming isolated at home or performing badly at school. Both narratives reflect a need of effort to engage both stepparents and stepchildren in a way of honest dialogue and cooperation. Finally, it can be concluded that even today, there exists in society a prejudice that blended families are still a few cases (though