Living a Provisional Existence: Thinking about Foster Carers and the Emotional Containment of Children Placed in Their Care

Abstract

Foster carers can find themselves placed in a situation of extreme difficulty and trauma when looking after abused, deprived and neglected children and their ability to manage can be tested to an intolerable degree. Leslie Ironside examines the sometimes extraordinary states of distress that can result from this experience. In particular, he describes a state of being that he calls ‘living a provisional existence’, in which foster carers feel ‘locked in’ and forced to parent in a way that feels very contrary to their hopes and ideals. It is a state filled with contradiction and confusion and the foster child is experienced as having ‘got under the skin’ of the foster carer in a very destructive way. This article explores how this state of being can be understood and usefully conceptualised in terms of emotions evoked in the foster carers through the child's projection of intolerable feelings. The foster carer may then become filled with the very feelings that the child cannot deal with and the foster carer's emotional reaction can be understood in terms of the child successfully imparting his or her feelings to those who are charged with their care.