ontological security and insecurity

ontological security and insecurity

the feelings of emotional and intellectual security or insecurity said to arise from the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of an individual's upbringing, especially early family relationships. According to psychoanalytic theorists, security depends on consistent and routine caring and an emotional exchange between parent and child in which the adult takes on the anxieties of the child so that these can be reinternalized by the child as bearable feelings.