A Study of Retardation of Ego Development caused by Insufficient Object Relations in Early Childhood and Recovery there from : through the Analysis of the Rorschach Scores of Foster Children and Institutionalized Children

This study analyzes the influence of object relations on ego development in the earlier stages in the histories of the individuals. The research was undertaken on the assumption that an infant's ego seeks an object by itself and its sufficient development requires total dependency on the Mother (or an important object), and that poor object relations in the earliest stage of childhood may cause retardation or deficiency of ego development. Three groups of children were chosen according to the conditions of object relations in their infancy: (1) foster children, (2) institutionalized children and (3) chidren raised under normal family conditions as control group. Group (1) consists of children who have supposedly regained important objects to depend on after critical experiences of object loss. Examining the personal histories of the children in Group (2) it is found that the degree of insufficiency in object relations varies substantially among them. Regrouping of the children to be examined, therfore, was attempted, taking into consideration their object relations in the earliest stages of infancy, which resulted in seven groups. The analysis of the Rorschach scores of these children was made according to the Klopfer's method. An apparant influence of object loss is implied among the scores of the subjects in contrast to the scores of the children of control group. However, the most conspicuous recovery from retardation of ego development was observed in the scores of foster children who were taken to foster families in early stages of infancy, as well as these of foster children who had experienced relatively close object relations in their own families. Little differences in regard to retardation were observed between the scores of foster children lacking close object reations in their early infancy and those of children with fairly good relations to important objects before coming to the institutions. Presumably foster parents provide more protective environments which are suitable for children's ego development than institutions. It is submitted, therefore, that ego development is disturbed by the absence of an important objcet in early infancy and also that there are still possibilities of recovery from the retardation in the subsequent childhood. The scores of children with possible psychotic disturbances inherited from their parents were analyzed separately from the rest of the subjects, being compared only with each other, because their object relations may have been affected by the latent mental disorder