Introduction

Personality development based on the principles of social psychology begins with the family environment. In psychology, the family environment is considered to be the circle that prefigures the approximate knowledge of the individual, itself surrounded by a larger circle: society. Within the family circle, however, there is the parental nucleus, a restricted circle made up of direct relatives: father, mother and siblings. On the father’s side, there is the paternal influence, but there are also other phenomena such as psychological instability and crumbling love. 

According to many researchers, the presence of a father’s authority is crucial to a child’s normal psychological development. When, due to illness, vice (alcoholism, sexual misconduct, etc.), physical absence or death, this authority is lacking, the following signs can be observed in children who then become victims of the Abundance Complex (a set of behaviours and attitudes sometimes observed in subjects who have been deprived at an early age of a presence that represents security)

Psychological instability 

Psychological instability occurs when the subject is unable to set a precise and definitive objective for their actions or projects. The absence of the father leads to a lack of reference points. This type of subject is an easy candidate for delinquency and criminal acts. A father’s authority, if it existed, should show them the limits in life, the limits necessary for behaviour in society. Otherwise, the child confuses possibility with licence: not everything that is possible is permitted in society. In sentimental terms, the individual will prove incapable of becoming deeply attached to a single object: he or she is said to flicker (when the individual has no fixed attachment).

The erosion of filial love 

The love that children feel for their father is undoubtedly natural, but maintaining it is not self-evident: it has to be nurtured. When the object of love disappears, is absent or fails, love also diminishes in intensity. It can easily turn to hatred when the child victim blames the failing parent. This is how, for some children, the relationship between them and their long-absent father becomes very difficult. These problems are exacerbated when children who have been deprived of their father’s presence for too long are unable to find in their father the qualities they had long imagined or dreamed of. 

When, for one reason or another, the father fails, the child tends to reject all the other authorities to which his life in society exposes him. 

Conclusion

The lack or absence of paternal authority leads to the destruction or rejection of all other authorities, including spiritual and educational ones. This is why any repeated or prolonged absence of paternal authority, any failure of that authority, must be explained and, if possible, justified to the child. 

When the sibling group is also lacking, the individual evolves in total ignorance of the possibilities of other children, whatever their sex. His universe becomes limited because the only beings who move here are the father and the mother. And if, by misfortune, both keep too much distance from the child, this limited universe is transformed into a veritable prison, a solitude that will weigh heavily on the balance of the personality.