Judgmental fathers and family discord drive girls toward severe psychosomatic illness

Evidence

Molly was fourteen when she began to suffer from psychic disorders; she was the fourth child in a family of five siblings. Her father is described as extremely strict and narrow-minded. He criticized the appearance and behavior of his children at every meal. The mother was worried and unhappy; and every so often the parents were not on speaking terms; one brother ran away from home. The patient was a gifted youngster, a good tap dancer; but she was shy, took the family troubles seriously, and was afraid of boys. Her older sister got married against her mother’s wishes and Molly was very interested in her pregnancy: she had a difficult delivery and forceps were necessary and she heard that women often die in childbirth. She took care of the baby for two months; when the sister left the house, there was a terrible scene and the mother fainted. Molly fainted too. She had seen classmates faint in class and her thoughts were much concerned with death and fainting. When she got her period, she told her mother with an embarrassed air: “That thing is here.” She went with her sister to buy some menstrual pads; on meeting a man in the street, she hung her head. In general she acted “disgusted with herself.” She never had pain during her periods, but tried to hide them from her mother, even when the latter saw stains on the sheets. She told her sister: “Anything might happen to me now. I might have a baby.” When told: “You have to live with a man for that to happen,” she replied: “Well, I am living with two men—my father and your husband.” — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 763

Categorization

• XREF: Echoes the family-tension-psychosomatic pathway case studies seen in Freudian clinical literature and in childhood-development texts read earlier. — connects to: Girls’ symptoms arise from their situation rather than a mysterious feminine soul — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 712; Girls develop psychosomatic illnesses as an unconscious exit from marriage; Enforced obedience converts children’s suffering into psychosomatic illness instead of rebellion — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice: How to Communicate…, 522 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Female biological instability produces an emotional vulnerability men lack #contradicts (0.82)
• Enforced obedience converts children’s suffering into psychosomatic illness instead of rebellion #corroborates (0.80) — Holm Gero Hümmler, Ulrike Schiesser, Fact and Prejudice, 522
• Girls develop psychosomatic illnesses as an unconscious exit from marriage #complicates (0.78)
• The father’s inaction can intensify a child’s suffering. #complicates (0.72) — Dave Pelzer, A Child Called ‘It’, 137