Journal of Education and Psychology

Abstract

Either physical or psychological absence of the father in a child’s life causes the child to develop a desire for father’s love. The so called “longing for father’s love complex (abb. LFLC)” depicts a set of interconnected attitudes, feelings and desires that arise when a child psychologically has strong desire for father’s love but such desire has been suppressed for a long period of time. This unsatisfied complex may be developing due to the one’s cultural and social context or it could be solely a problem of the father’s personal factors. This study identifies two subtypes of behavioral pattern for individual who long for father’s love but cannot be satisfied for a prolonged period of time. The first subtype called “coercive subtype”, and the second one called “defensive subtype” that are formed in order to reach a comfortable position internally to best fit the environment under the desire for father’s love. Furthermore, this study categorizes the pattern of interaction between fathers and daughters into the following five subtypes: benevolent parent-filial child, general subtype of parent-child relationship, severe parent-unbridled child, severe parent-filial child, and warm parent-cold child. The participants consist of 506 adolescent girls from senior high schools and vocational schools. All participants were instructed to complete five scales including Parent-child Interaction, LFLC, Somatic-Psycho Symptoms Checklist, Social Self-Esteem, and Social Skill. The study showed: (1) Daughters who belong to the “coercive” and “defensive” subtypes of longing for father’s love tend to feel more alienated from others or depressed, experience more bodily discomfort, difficulties in intimate relationships with man, and feel less sense of well-being and happiness than normal daughters. (2) Daughters of coercive subtype manifest a higher level of social skills and social self-esteem than daughters of defensive subtype. (3) The quality of father-daughter interaction affects the development of the two subtypes of longing for father’s love complex. (4) Especially, daughters of severe parent-unbridled child subtype are mostly likely to develop a defensive behavioral pattern; daughters of severe parent-filial child subtype have the highest association with coercive behavioral pattern. Moreover, daughters who belong to the benevolent parent-filial child subtype are less likely to form behavioral patterns resulted from high LFLC.

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