The Effects of Violence Due to Neglect in Childhood

Introduction

Currently it has been observed that children have increased considerably the use of electronic devices, either to take online classes or as a means of entertainment. For the magazine Business insider Mexico (2021) [1], 60% of children and adolescents spend their free time playing video games or being in front of a screen. According to the data from the Inegi (2021) [2], children take virtual classes from 3 to 5 hours a day since the confinement due to Covid-19 was established. Still in Mexico, several students take their classes in a hybrid way, that is, face-to-face and online. This fact indicates that children today spend more than 8 hours in front of a screen per day. On the other hand, it has been observed in the interviews with parents the difficulty they have in establishing boundaries towards their children, it is glimpsed how they leave the media content and information that the child consumes at the mercy of virtuality that does not generate anything worthy to enrich the internal world of children. Parents believe that because they are home there is no danger to the child, it is comfortable because while they carry out other activities, they know that their children are in front of a screen. This is worrying because the majority of parents who go to therapeutic consultation report that they are not aware of the interactions and information that children obtain in virtuality. It is also observed that parents are forced to take their children for consultation by recommendation from the institutions or a close relative, that is, it is not due to any genuine concern where they realize that they cannot attend to the needs of their children on their own, there is no awareness of illness on behalf of the parents, the symptomatology of the child is attributed to situations external to them.

Abuse by neglect is due to a deficit and rejection on behalf of the parents to provide protection, care, physical, mental, social attention and cognitive stimulation; this usually continues from early childhood to adolescence [3]. Abuse due to neglect in virtuality is nothing more than another consecutive act of many others that have occurred since the beginning of the life of infants. When parents do not care about any of their children and are not aware of the processes and achievements throughout their development, they constrain their essence as people with desires, needs, wants and affections.

The Importance of Limitations in Childhood

The limitations are the foundation to consolidate and constitute the psychic structure of the individual. Casas M [4]. points out that the frustration expressed by the child in the face of a limitation exerted by the parents, is essential in the bond with the other, deprivation and castration intervene to constitute themselves as a desiring subject, therefore, frustration defines and gives continuity to the phases of development in childhood. Each situation in childhood and each phase generates losses in children that they have to process as duels, this allows them to form symbols and elements that generate thinking, discerning, and acting. The infant, through a state of optimal frustration, is introduced into his environment and acquires identifications of his parents and his context for the conformation of his individuality and subjectivity.

Dolto F [5], states that the child’s psychic constitution is based on the image of the body, which in turn is elaborated from symbolic castrations, that is, the author describes moments or stages of the child’s life from the moment of birth until the beginning of adolescence, where the child has to endure deprivation so that he organizes his psyche. Parents are the guides and those who stop certain behaviors and situations that at first instance proved constitutive for the development of the psyche, but that later can generate obstacles in its psychic organization, for example the care exercised by the mother for weaning, this can be violent and abrasive for the child, however the infant is required to process this loss so that a whole new series of elements are opened that will consolidate, take hold and develop in the child’s internal world.

When the parents do not meet the needs of the child, nor do they see him as an individual being, different from each of the family members, nor do they have the ability to prohibit, stop or limit moments or situations linked to his psychic development, then failure will intervene to elaborate and symbolize each loss in the infant, establishing pathological forms that prevent free movement through the stages of its development. Dolto F [5] maintains that the mother is the first agent that signifies the infant, subjectifying him as he set boundaries and upsets the child, the child can experience it as a violent act, and however, those are frustrations that provide significant elements for the infant’s psyche which develops alongside their individuality.

Winnicot D [6], considers that the subject who has the ability to care about another and who assumes his responsibility to protect him, has a high degree of self- unification; signifying and bonding with those who are part of his life and his environment, implies well-being and health as an integrated and ambivalent subject. According to the author, when the baby perceives his mother as a total, unified, integrated being, he lends himself to a two-body relationship, that is, the baby begins to show himself as a subject with his own identity. For this condition to be achieved, it is necessary to provide a “facilitating environment”, a space where the child is seen by his parents as a being that requires elements that provide him protection, care and support.

When the infant is not protected, supported, or cared for, fissures arise in the subjectivation of the individual; the affective absence of the parents generates undeniable failures for their psychic ordinance. For Arranz M, et al. [7], child vulnerability occurs when the basic needs of the infant have not been covered in a period of time long enough to generate significant consequences, situations of abuse due to neglect or lack of attention are usually not detected because they are violence acts that apparently do not involve criticism of parents or those who care for minors, these are usually normalized within the family and social sphere. Concern for others is inherent to the maturation of the psychic integrative processes; available and continuous caregivers that are aware of the inner progress of the child.

Methodology

This research has the purpose of identifying the elements that contribute to the lack of psychic development exerted by violence due to neglect, it will try to analyze a clinical case presented in a vignette to demonstrate the psychic helplessness caused by neglect and affective absence.

Analysis and Discussion of Results

It is observed that the death drive prevails in his actions, his way of being noticed by others is by aggressive means, he has not been given the possibility of showing him other ways of expression, and both his parents and himself justify themselves behind a label that empowers them to avoid responsibilities. On behalf of the parents there is no manner to establish boundaries and generate an optimal degree of frustration, their priorities are different, there is no way to libidinize the other, the death drive prevails, canceling his thoughts, his desires and their great need to know that they are heard and cared for by their parents. Coinciding with Cristoforo A [11], in the case of Tony, hyperactivity/ annoyance is a way of expressing failures from the first links, there is somatic disorganization, that is, failures in corporal libidinization, his hyperactivity is a need for containment and somatic regulation; at the same time, it is a provocation towards the other.

The parents did not have the ability to worry about him, giving him a glance, talking to him and communicating from the beginning of his development would have made it possible for him to invest his reality and have a better capacity for representation, identification and interaction. Due to an effective absence, there is a permanent neglect, Tony denotes a fragile and helpless self. Infants are psychically constituted from the moment desire of the other is manifested, if there is no other that corresponds, the child will be left helpless, Tony shows his emotional helplessness in the absence of his parents, he is libidinally deprived, eager for support and care. Coinciding with Wald A [12], subjective vulnerability and experiences of helplessness originate from experiences with others, the author is committed to a new subjective dimension that involves individual and group therapeutic approaches to both children and parents, including interdisciplinary work.

As Janin B [13] proposes, the therapist will look for the relationship difficulties that emerge in the child’s history and will allow the expression of the infant, giving rise to the unfolding of new paths through creation, whether in play, drawing or stories; look for places for the child to enjoy and at the same time reconstruct himself through symbolic elaborations, to make room for his repressed desires, wishes, ideals and fantasies to emerge. Consequently, his ego will be reorganized to formulate different procedures to bond with his parents and his environment, he will be constituted again as an individual being.

According to Delgado J [14], the concept of abuse due to neglect becomes ambiguous and diffuse, however, this type of violence is an accepted social practice, especially in these times, abuse is diluted due to the need to use virtuality due to the Covid-19 pandemic, leaving gaps in the infant’s psyche, limiting the latency period, a fundamental phase of internal readjustment that gives rise to involvement in the social, school and family spheres [15, 16]. What Tony requires, precisely, is to link up and to be introduced in the social environment, with genuine relationships that resignify his internal world as well as the ability to express his affections through spoken word.

Conclusion

Virtuality in the pandemic has brought new learning modalities, but also pseudo interactions that stop and limit the psychic development of children. The information that is obtained immediately saturates the capacity of retention and elaboration; the transgressive content of the internet does not allow access to other forms of interaction and emotional expression. Tony has a great inability to bond with others, that is, with his schoolmates or with his sister. There is no room to interact, tolerate, empathize and be heard. The neglect and affective absence on behalf of the parents has exposed Tony to continuous affective helplessness, leaving him with constitutive failures from the beginning of his psychic development. It is essential that mental health specialists give the infant a space to think, give him a place so that he can rebuild and redefine himself, in such a way that he can discover the meaning of himself and his place in the world. It is hoped that this research will spread awareness of these forms of violence, which are not tangible and are acceptable to society, however are considerably harmful to the children who suffer from it.