Real and imaginary fathers : development, transference, and healing

In this work, Salman Akhtar looks at how many fathers unconsciously, and sometimes quite consciously, attempt to revise their own traumatized childhood by providing their children with possibilities for "a good life", of which they were deprived.

The gains for the parent come from empathetic experiencing - and the pleasure of facilitating the hard path life invariably takes.

Somewhere in this too, there is the narcissistic gratification that comes from the successes our children achieve.