Following Freud's rather cold conception of fathers and a relative neglect of their role in psychoanalytic theory is a challenge to continue more recent efforts to develop a psychoanalytically affirmative portrait of fatherhood. Here, fathers are attuned to relational mutuality and intimacy as a source of flourishing. Rapprochement is understood as a sub-phase of child development marked by a dramatic expression of conflict such as, ?Hear me, see me, give me space, don't give me space.? In addition, rapprochement is considered to characterize conflicts between autonomy and dependency across the lifespan. An often muted and subtle tension between holding and letting go persists. Working with what is felt entails entering a never fully completed negotiation marked by misreadings, bias, and illusion. 'Father' is understood to be a name pointing to a parenting function. With material that includes the grief of failed reunion, particular stories are mediated through thinking alongside philosophy and psychoanalytic theory in order to further explore the difficulty of integrating nurturing capacities into conceptions of masculinity. As a critique of gendered rigidity, a case is made for a social surround that declares mutual vulnerability to exist in a state of permanent inquiry and relational curiosity. Such openness can function to aid parents, clinicians, and respective community members to privilege the development of increased frustration tolerance. By extension, a good-enough father is one who recognizes breakdown, a need for refueling, and possesses and practices a willingness to encounter uneven rhythms in human dimensions. AUTHOR: Louis Rothschild, PhD, is a clinical psychologist in the greater Baltimore, Maryland area. Specialising in psychoanalytic psychotherapy, his publications have ranged from quantitative to qualitative and clinical to philosophical. After obtaining his PhD at the New School for Social Research where he published on the relationship between essentialist beliefs and prejudice, he completed a fellowship at Brown University's Department of Psychiatry & Human Behavior. There, his categorical interest turned from the social to psychiatric taxonomy, focusing on the relationships between personality and chronic depression. Once in private practice, his writing returned to the intersections between critical theory, psychoanalysis, gender theory, and pop culture that piqued his interest as an undergraduate in San Francisco. Those varied interests have led to his first book Rapprochement between Fathers and Sons: Breakdowns, Reunions, Potentialities forthcoming with Phoenix in addition to a co-edited volume, Precarities of 21st Century Childhoods: Critical Explorations of Time(s), Place(s), and Identities. He is a past President of the Rhode Island local chapter of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology (Division 39) of the American Psychological Association, and served as a member of the steering committee for the 38th annual spring meeting of the Society for Psychoanalysis and Psychoanalytic Psychology, which took place in New Orleans, his birthplace. There, he was able to feature one of his paintings entitled ?Ghosts and Guardians?, and helped to plan and deliver a featured panel on the impact of slavery in the United States. His website is www.louisrothschildphd.com.
