Daddy Issues: Daddy's Girl, Mama’s Boy, Father Complex
Channel: Prof. Sam Vaknin
Date: 2022-04-16

Self-splitting: princess/Madonna vs. whore

Freud Father Complex (Oedipus and Electra complexes)

Studies: correlation with promiscuity and sexual recklessness in women. In men: lack of a male role model, feelings of inadequacy such as a lack of self-confidence and self-esteem, and a quest in adulthood to find father substitutes.

What are people with daddy issues looking for?

WOMEN: care, protection, approval, acceptance, understanding, support, validation, adoration, attention, worship, reality testing, unconditional love.

MEN: pampering, safety, regulation of sense of self-worth (grandiosity), unconditional love.

Both genders: “dead” father affects socialization and anxiety regulation, “dead” mother no separation-individuation. Or: extremely close, perhaps even disproportionately close, relationship with their fathers or mothers.

Etiology: Unhealthy Close Bonds , Sexual Abuse , Absentee Dads.

Core beliefs about their worth, ability to trust others and feel in control of one’s actions.

Repetition compulsions: approach-avoidance, abuse.

Insecure attachment styles and, according to Bianca Rodriguez, impaired intimacy template (intimacy cloud).

Amy Rollo, psychotherapist and owner of Heights Family Counseling in Houston, Texas:

• being anxious when you aren’t with your partner
• needing lots of reassurance that the relationship is OK 
• seeing any negativity as a sign that the relationship is doomed

Passive or victim position in skewed power matrix

Possessiveness, suspiciousness, jealousy, control

Separation insecurity leads to clinging, coercion, triangulation, emotional blackmail

Drama as way to avoid loneliness, facing oneself, and a kind of self-harming and self-trashing

LITERATURE

DelPriore DJ, Hill SE. The effects of paternal disengagement on women’s sexual decision making: An experimental approach. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2013;105(2):234-246. 

Inniss D. Emerging from the Daddy Issue: A Phenomenological Study of the Impact of the Lived Experiences of Men Who Experienced Fatherlessness on Their Approach to Fathering Sons. [dissertation]. Philadeliphia: Drexel University, 2013

Yoon S, Bellamy JL, Kim W, Yoon D. Father Involvement and Behavior Problems among Preadolescents at Risk of Maltreatment. J Child Fam Stud. 2018;27(2):494-504. 

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