Searching for Understanding in Lost Boys: An Archetypal Perspective on Dismemberment Themes in Children’s Play

Abstract

Society labels boys who play destructively as bad, deviant, oppositional, or antisocial, causing parents to feel something is wrong with their child. This study shows that boys acting out destructively, dismembering inanimate objects, tearing up their rooms, and decapitating toys are not naughty or “bad” but, instead, are searching for relief in their struggle with development in middle childhood, or latency. The field of depth psychology lacks studies focused on the middle childhood development of boys. The failure to understand the latency stage of development leads to a failure of empathic understanding, causing the latency stage to be the lost years of childhood. This hermeneutic query seeks to understand if destructive acts such as dismemberment of transitional objects can bring forth healing. Characters within cinema, myth, story, and the lives of their creators provide the material for this research that analyzes the archetypal images arising when destructive play occurs. Utilizing a depth psychological approach, this study amplifies the symbolic representation of the objects destroyed and applies the concept of individuation to the activities of fictional boys and actual “lost boys” in foster care. The research provides an understanding of the healing potential in their acts of destruction. In play, children tap into primal energy and constellate archetypal processes that enact feelings and motivations that are indescribable for a child and often unknown to the parent. Inferring what the soul is saying through symbolic expression in play, exploring the alchemical transformations expressed by play, and seeking to understand what the symptom of destruction are telling us, is the task of depth psychotherapists counseling children and parents.