Both experience and scientific tests have shown that babies who don’t have object constancy; that is, who don’t receive sufficient love, care, and holding can die. Children who don’t have object constancy and don’t feel loved and accepted can become very aggressive or withdrawn. Teenagers may end up depressed, suicidal, on drugs, or in jail.

Adults without object constancy can become victims of any of a number of addictive substances or practices all of which are a vain attempt to fill the empty hole in their heart and deaden the pain of their hollow lives. Or they can become very ill-physically, emotionally and/or spiritually—and die before their time.

Some feel inadequate and powerless so use control as a poor substitute for empowerment. Others withdraw emotionally and, even though married and living with their spouse, they live together alone, apart.

Others unconsciously seek to replace parental love in romantic relationships and marriage. But no spouse can ever meet their mate’s unmet childhood need for mother or father-love. Others substitute sex for love and leave a trail of victims in their attempt to fill their empty void and to avoid facing the painful root cause of their emptiness and loneliness.

So, if we don’t have sufficient object constancy, how can we find the love we need and so be genuinely empowered for life?

Recovery

First, realize that the answer is not found in fame, fortune, popularity, sex, exciting “bells and whistles” romance, achievement or approval, but through recovery. The harsh reality is that only loved people find true love, and in the words of another, “We find it within or we find it not!”

Honesty

Second, recovery begins when we admit the truth, to ourselves and to a trusted friend or two, that we don’t feel loved or we didn’t feel loved as children, and that we have spent too much effort looking for love in all the wrong places.

Emotions

Third, we need to realize that we build up a considerable amount of anger, shame, hurt and grief over the loss of the love we never received. So we need to get in touch with all these buried emotions and get rid of them by expressing them creatively and mourning our loss. If necessary, we may need the help of a trusted counselor. If we don’t mourn our loss, we will inevitably take out our unresolved negative emotions on the ones we are closest too.

Causes

Fourth, when overwhelming feelings of loneliness and emptiness continually plague us, we need to realize that their roots most often lie in love deprivation from childhood. If so, it is important not to deaden or anesthetize our pain through endless activity, over-busyness, performance, sex, or any food or substance abuse, etc. What is needed is healthy re-parenting and getting our needs met in healthy ways—and not expecting anybody else to fill the empty void in our life.²

To be continued …

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, if there is any unresolved area in my life, please reveal this to me. Help me to resolve it so I will experience a deep level of object constancy, so that my love cup will be filled to overflowing with your love and the love of others and “splash” onto every life I touch. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (NIV).
2. Adapted from “The Power of Love” by Dick Innes, http://tinyurl.com/283t54

“What on earth is object constancy?” I can hear readers asking.

It’s something that we needed to have from earliest childhood and maintain throughout life. With it we have a much better chance of living life to the full. Without it we will “limp along in the shadows of life” eking out a meager existence with a sense that something is missing—like having a feeling of emptiness. In a vain attempt to fill this void we may use food and become a foodaholic, or become a workaholic keeping busy, busy, busy to avoid facing the pain of this inner emptiness. Or we may become an alcoholic or use drugs to deaden the pain, or keep looking for love in all the wrong places.

Object constancy. We need it for survival. So what is it?

When a child is first born, as long as it is wanted and loved, it will be bonded and attached to mother in a healthy way. Here it feels safe and secure. As the child grows it not only needs to be weaned from mother’s breast but also, little by little, from mother’s presence so it can begin to find its own identity. During this process, as long as it has a deep inner sense of being loved, mother can leave the room and baby feels fine. And as long as mother’s love is constant and baby is an object of mother’s love, the baby has object constancy. That is, it constantly feels loved.

However, if the baby doesn’t have this deep sense of love and security, it may panic when mother leaves the room. Or even when mother is there, without a sense of constant love, baby will feel very insecure, and cry. But if and when it cries repeatedly and mother isn’t there or doesn’t come to comfort it, it will eventually stop crying and turn its pain inward. It has a lack of object constancy.

When a person grows up into adulthood without a deep sense of object constancy, it is headed for constant loneliness and relational difficulties. This person may look to the opposite sex, use sex to get what they mistake for love, and/or marry the wrong person in an unconscious attempt to fill that empty mother-void (and father-void if father’s love wasn’t constant either). Sex, romantic love, and/or marriage can never fill this void or heal this pain because the problem is that the lack of object constancy is a childhood issue. Romance and marriage is for adults.

Furthermore, where a person lacks object constancy, he or she can have a very difficult time feeling God’s love too.

And where we lack object constancy how do we find healing?

To be continued …

1. Suggested prayer for parents: “Dear God, please help me to be the loving parent I need to be so that all of my children will feel secure in my love for them and always sense your love flowing through me to them. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

2. Suggested prayer for those who lack object constancy: “Dear God, about my loneliness and the empty void in my life, please help me to face the depth of this loss and stop running from the pain, and lead me to the help I need to find healing and recovery. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. John

13:34 (NIV).