The smartphone has become the defining object of the 21st century, and its presence in children’s lives is now nearly universal. By the age of 11, over 90% of children in developed nations own a mobile phone, with smartphone ownership beginning as early as age 6 in many households . This unprecedented technological immersion represents a radical departure from all previous childhoods, creating what some researchers call a “natural experiment” on a global scale. The implications for child development are profound, complex, and hotly debated among parents, educators, and researchers alike.

To understand how smartphones are reshaping childhood, we must look beyond surface-level concerns about screen time and examine deeper developmental processes. The theoretical frameworks of Jean Piaget, Lev Vygotsky, and Henri Wallon—three giants of developmental psychology—offer powerful lenses through which to analyze this transformation. Each theorist emphasized different aspects of development: Piaget focused on cognitive structures and stages, Vygotsky on social interaction and cultural tools, and Wallon on emotional development and the dialectic between the individual and environment. Together, their perspectives create a comprehensive map for navigating the digital childhood landscape.

This article examines how smartphone use intersects with fundamental developmental processes through these three theoretical frameworks, ultimately arguing that while smartphones present genuine risks, they also offer opportunities that cannot be ignored. The challenge for contemporary society is not to eliminate technology from children’s lives but to understand its developmental impacts deeply enough to create healthier digital ecosystems.

The Piagetian Perspective: Cognitive Architecture in the Digital Age

Sensorimotor Foundations and Digital Displacement

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development revolutionized our understanding of how children construct knowledge through active engagement with their environment. His first stage, the sensorimotor period (birth to approximately 2 years), establishes the foundation for all subsequent cognitive development. During this critical window, infants learn through direct physical manipulation—grasping, mouthing, banging, and exploring objects to understand their properties and the laws of physics.

Smartphones fundamentally disrupt this process. When a toddler swipes a screen, they receive immediate visual feedback without experiencing the resistance, texture, weight, or three-dimensional properties of physical objects. The screen responds uniformly regardless of pressure, angle, or approach. This creates what researchers call “flattened” sensorimotor experiences, where the rich feedback loops between action and consequence that Piaget considered essential are severely attenuated.

Recent research supports this concern. Studies comparing traditional toys with touchscreen equivalents find that children show less exploratory behavior and reduced transfer of learning from digital to physical contexts . The “app gap”—wherein affluent families limit screen time while lower-income families rely more heavily on screens—may be creating unequal foundations for abstract thought.

Concrete Operations and the Symbolic Function

Piaget’s concrete operational stage (ages 7-11) marks the emergence of logical thought applied to physical, tangible situations. Children develop conservation concepts, classification abilities, and seriation skills through hands-on manipulation. The smartphone’s impact here is more nuanced but equally significant.

On one hand, educational apps can scaffold concrete operational thinking through interactive math games, virtual manipulatives, and simulation-based science learning. Research from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center suggests that well-designed educational media can support the development of specific cognitive skills aligned with Piagetian stages .

However, the opportunity cost is substantial. Time spent on smartphones displaces the unstructured, self-directed play that Piaget considered the “work of childhood.” When children spend hours on devices, they lose opportunities to build forts, mix mud pies, negotiate rules with peers, and solve physical problems—activities that build the cognitive structures Piaget mapped so carefully. The smartphone offers pre-designed problems with predetermined solutions, whereas Piagetian development requires children to construct their own understanding through trial, error, and reconstruction.

Formal Operations and the Attention Crisis

Piaget’s final stage, formal operational thought (beginning around age 12), involves abstract reasoning, hypothetical-deductive thinking, and metacognition. Here, smartphones present what may be their most insidious challenge: the fragmentation of attention necessary for deep, abstract thought.

Formal operations require sustained concentration, working memory manipulation, and the ability to hold multiple abstract variables in mind simultaneously. Smartphone use, characterized by rapid switching between apps, notifications, and short-form content, trains brains for exactly the opposite cognitive style. The “continuous partial attention” that researcher Linda Stone identified nearly two decades ago has become the default mode for digital natives .

Neuroscience research supports this concern. Studies using functional MRI show that heavy smartphone users exhibit reduced activity in prefrontal cortex regions associated with sustained attention and impulse control . While correlation does not prove causation, the pattern aligns with Piaget’s emphasis on the need for concentrated mental effort to achieve formal operational thinking. If adolescence is the critical period for developing abstract reasoning, and if smartphones systematically undermine the attentional prerequisites for such reasoning, we may be witnessing a fundamental alteration in cognitive development trajectories.

Piaget’s Constructivism in the Digital Context

Piaget viewed children as active constructors of knowledge, not passive recipients. From this perspective, smartphones are not merely “bad” or “good” but represent a new category of environmental input that shapes how knowledge is constructed. The critical question becomes: what kind of knowledge do smartphones help children construct?

The answer appears to be procedural rather than conceptual knowledge. Children become adept at navigating interfaces, finding information, and operating within digital systems, but may struggle with the deep, transferable understanding that comes from physically manipulating the world and engaging in extended problem-solving. The “digital native” is often sophisticated in technology use while remaining cognitively shallow in traditional academic domains—a pattern that concerns educators worldwide.

The Vygotskian Lens: Social Mediation and Cultural Tools

The Zone of Proximal Development Redefined

Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory offers a dramatically different but complementary perspective. Where Piaget emphasized individual cognitive structures, Vygotsky focused on how social interaction and cultural tools mediate development. His concept of the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)—the gap between what a child can do alone and what they can achieve with guidance—provides a powerful framework for evaluating smartphones.

Smartphones create both expanded and contracted ZPDs. On the expansion side, children can access expertise, information, and collaborative opportunities previously unimaginable. A child interested in astronomy can video chat with an astrophysicist, access telescope data from observatories worldwide, and participate in citizen science projects. The smartphone becomes what Vygotsky called a “psychological tool” that extends cognitive capabilities beyond biological limitations.

However, the contraction of the ZPD is equally real. When children use smartphones primarily for passive consumption—watching videos, scrolling feeds, playing solitary games—they miss the scaffolded learning that occurs through face-to-face interaction with more knowledgeable others. The subtle cues, immediate feedback, emotional attunement, and adaptive support that characterize effective scaffolding are difficult to replicate through screens, particularly for younger children.

Research on “video deficit” phenomena illustrates this clearly. Children under 3 learn significantly less from video content than from live interaction, even when the content is identical . The social presence of a responsive human appears necessary for optimal learning, suggesting that smartphone-based education for young children may be inherently limited regardless of content quality.

Internalization and the Digital Self

Vygotsky emphasized that higher mental functions originate in social interaction and are internalized to become individual psychological tools. Language is the prime example: children first use speech socially, then internalize it as private speech, and finally as inner speech for self-regulation.

Smartphones are introducing new forms of social interaction that may alter internalization processes. Text-based communication, emoji use, and social media interactions represent novel forms of “speech” that children are learning to internalize. The implications for self-regulation are significant. Where previous generations internalized verbal self-regulation through face-to-face negotiation, today’s children may be developing regulatory systems based on likes, comments, and digital feedback loops.

This transformation affects identity formation, a process Vygotsky linked closely to social interaction. The “digital self”—curated, performative, and subject to constant external evaluation—may be becoming the primary locus of identity for adolescents. Research links heavy social media use to increased self-objectification, anxiety, and depression, particularly among girls . From a Vygotskian perspective, these outcomes make sense: if social interaction is increasingly mediated through platforms designed for engagement rather than well-being, the internalized psychological tools will reflect those design priorities.

Cultural Tools and Cognitive Transformation

Vygotsky argued that cultural tools fundamentally shape cognition. Writing systems, number systems, and scientific concepts all transform how humans think. Smartphones represent the most powerful cultural tool yet introduced, combining communication, information access, computation, and media creation in a single device.

This tool is reshaping cognition in ways that align with Vygotsky’s predictions about technological mediation. Distributed cognition—wherein thinking occurs across brains and devices—is now the norm. Children no longer need to memorize facts, calculate mentally, or navigate spatially without digital assistance. The cognitive “muscles” for these functions may atrophy while new capabilities—information filtering, multimodal processing, digital collaboration—develop.

Whether this represents progress or decline depends on values, but Vygotsky’s framework suggests that resistance is futile and adaptation is necessary. The question is not whether smartphones will shape development—they will—but whether we can design digital environments that support healthy Vygotskian processes: meaningful social interaction, scaffolded learning, and the internalization of culturally valued competencies.

Henri Wallon: Emotion, Development, and the Dialectic of Adaptation

The Emotional Foundations of Intelligence

Henri Wallon, though less internationally famous than Piaget or Vygotsky, developed a comprehensive theory emphasizing the primacy of emotion in development. For Wallon, cognitive development cannot be separated from emotional development; they are dialectically intertwined from birth.

Wallon identified distinct stages marked by emotional-cognitive configurations: the impulsive stage (birth-6 months), the sensorimotor and projective stage (6 months-2 years), the personalism stage (2-3 years), the categorical stage (3-6 years), and the pubertal stage (6+ years). Each stage involves specific emotional challenges that must be resolved for healthy development.

Smartphones intersect with Wallonian stages in concerning ways. During the personalism stage, when children are developing autonomy and self-awareness through conflict with caregivers, smartphones often function as emotional pacifiers. The “digital pacifier” phenomenon—handing a device to a tantruming toddler—may short-circuit the emotional conflicts Wallon considered necessary for developing self-regulation and personal identity.

Research on emotional regulation supports this concern. Children who use screens to calm down show less development of internal self-regulation strategies compared to those who learn to manage emotions through caregiver support and environmental engagement . The immediate gratification provided by screens may interfere with the gradual development of emotional tolerance and resilience that Wallon emphasized.

The Dialectic of Individual and Environment

Wallon’s dialectical approach—emphasizing the dynamic tension between individual and environment—provides a sophisticated framework for understanding smartphone impacts. Rather than viewing technology as simply “affecting” children, Wallon would emphasize the mutual transformation: children adapt to smartphones, but smartphones also adapt to children (through algorithms, design choices, and platform policies).

This dialectic creates what we might call digital developmental niches—environmental configurations that shape development in specific directions. The smartphone niche is characterized by: immediate responsiveness to user input, infinite content availability, social connectivity without physical presence, and quantified self-representation (likes, followers, streaks). These features create developmental pressures quite different from those of previous eras.

The quantified self aspect is particularly Wallonian. Wallon emphasized how children develop through recognition by others; the “mirror stage” (later popularized by Lacan but rooted in Wallon’s work) describes how infants develop self-awareness through seeing themselves reflected in others’ reactions. Social media extends this process exponentially but also distorts it. The quantified metrics of digital platforms—likes, shares, comments—provide constant “mirroring” that may create unstable self-concepts based on volatile external validation rather than the more stable, nuanced feedback of face-to-face relationships.

Psychomotor Development and the Body

Wallon, trained as a physician, paid careful attention to psychomotor development—the integration of physical movement, emotional expression, and cognitive function. He viewed the body as the foundation of psychological development, not merely its vehicle.

Smartphones create unprecedented disembodiment in childhood. Children spend hours in static positions, fine motor systems engaged in swiping and typing while gross motor systems remain inactive. This contradicts everything we know about brain development: motor activity stimulates cognitive growth, physical play supports emotional regulation, and bodily experience grounds abstract thought.

The nature deficit that Richard Louv described—children’s alienation from natural environments—is exacerbated by smartphone use . Wallon would view this as a crisis of developmental materials. Just as Piaget emphasized the need for physical objects to manipulate, Wallon emphasized the need for varied physical environments that challenge and stimulate the developing organism. The smartphone’s virtual environments, however engaging, cannot substitute for the multisensory, risky, unpredictable qualities of physical reality.

Synthesis: A Developmental Crisis and Opportunity

The Converging Evidence

Bringing these three theoretical perspectives together reveals a complex picture. From Piaget, we see risks to cognitive structure-building and attentional capacity. From Vygotsky, we see transformation of social mediation and cultural tools. From Wallon, we see threats to emotional development and embodiment. The convergence suggests that smartphones are not merely changing what children learn but how they develop—the fundamental processes of cognitive, social, and emotional maturation.

The evidence for negative impacts is substantial and growing. Longitudinal studies link early smartphone use to later attention problems, academic underachievement, and mental health difficulties . The correlations are strongest for: (1) early age of first use, (2) heavy daily usage, and (3) social media versus educational content. These patterns align with our theoretical analysis: early use disrupts foundational stages, heavy use creates opportunity costs for developmental activities, and social media specifically targets the social-emotional systems that all three theorists considered central.

However, the complete picture requires acknowledging variation and context. Not all children are equally affected; individual differences in temperament, family environment, and usage patterns moderate outcomes. Moreover, smartphones are not going away, and blanket prohibition is neither feasible nor necessarily desirable. The theoretical frameworks suggest that the goal should be optimizing rather than eliminating digital experience.

Toward Developmentally Informed Digital Childhood

Based on this theoretical analysis, several principles emerge for healthier smartphone use:

1. Stage-Appropriate Access: Following Piaget’s stages, smartphone access should be delayed until children have established solid sensorimotor and concrete operational foundations through physical play. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no screens under 18 months (except video chatting) and strict limits thereafter, aligning with Piagetian stage boundaries .

2. Social Scaffolding: Following Vygotsky, smartphone use should be socially mediated rather than solitary. Co-viewing, discussing content, and using devices to facilitate rather than replace social connection can preserve the ZPD-expanding potential while minimizing isolation.

3. Emotional Attunement: Following Wallon, smartphone use should not interfere with emotional development. This means avoiding screens as emotional pacifiers, ensuring physical activity and nature exposure, and maintaining family connection rituals that support healthy attachment.

4. Quality Over Quantity: All three theorists would emphasize that content matters. Educational, creative, and socially connected uses are developmentally different from passive consumption or anonymous interaction. Not all screen time is equal.

5. Balanced Environments: The smartphone should be one element in a rich developmental environment, not the dominant feature. Physical play, social interaction, nature exposure, and creative activities must be protected from digital displacement.

Conclusion

The smartphone represents the most significant environmental change in childhood since the industrial revolution, and perhaps in human history. Through the lenses of Piaget, Vygotsky, and Wallon, we can see that its impacts are not superficial but fundamental—reaching into the core processes of cognitive construction, social mediation, and emotional development.

The crisis is real: we are witnessing alterations in attention, sociality, and embodiment that previous generations of developmental psychologists could not have imagined. Children are developing within environments that systematically undermine the active, social, embodied processes that these theorists identified as foundational.

Yet the opportunity is equally real. Smartphones also offer unprecedented access to information, connection, and creative tools. The theoretical frameworks do not suggest rejecting technology but rather mastering it—integrating it into developmental contexts that preserve what is essential about childhood while adapting to new realities.

The task for parents, educators, and policymakers is to create developmentally informed digital ecosystems. This requires understanding not just what children are doing on smartphones but how these devices are shaping the fundamental architecture of developing minds. Piaget, Vygotsky, and Wallon provide the conceptual tools for this understanding; the will to apply them remains our collective challenge.

The children growing up today will inherit a world more digitally mediated than we can currently imagine. Our responsibility is to ensure that they inherit not just the technology but the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities to use it wisely. The theories of developmental psychology, properly applied, offer our best hope for navigating this unprecedented transformation.

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ABSTRACT

Domestic violence is a complex phenomenon that produces psychological effects not only on direct victims but also on children who witness it within the family environment. This article aims to analyze the effects of domestic violence against the maternal figure, witnessed in childhood, on the psychic constitution of the subject, from a psychoanalytic perspective. Based on the contributions of Freud and post-Freudian authors such as Winnicott and Ferenczi, trauma is understood not merely as the result of direct aggression but as an experience marked by excess, helplessness, and the breakdown of the environment’s protective function. The study discusses how repeated exposure to violence compromises processes of symbolization, trust in others, and the organization of the self, producing effects that may extend into adult life, including relational difficulties, repetition of violent patterns, diffuse anxiety, and feelings of guilt. Finally, this article emphasizes the importance of a clinical listening that is attentive to the marks left by such experiences, recognizing the child witness of domestic violence as a subject profoundly affected by these traumatic contexts.

KEYWORDS

intrafamily violence; childhood; trauma; psychoanalysis; psychic constitution

Introduction

According to Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920/2010, 13), experiences marked by excess of excitation and helplessness can produce lasting traumatic effects on the psyche. Domestic violence constitutes a complex phenomenon that produces psychological effects not only on those who directly suffer aggression, but also on those who, recurrently, witness it, as also indicated by Bowlby in Attachment and Loss (1988/2002, 77) and Winnicott in The Environment and Processes of Maturation (1979/1983, 45). In the context of childhood, exposure to violence directed at the maternal figure compromises the sense of security and the initial processes of psychic constitution, configuring a situation of fundamental helplessness, as Freud describes in Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety (1926/2011, 92).

According to Freud (1926/2011, 84), trauma is not defined solely by the violent event, but by the collapse of possibilities for psychic binding of excitations. Situations marked by excess and helplessness exceed the capacity of the psychic apparatus to elaborate the experience, producing lasting effects, as Freud (1920/2010, 29) also describes. In this sense, the child who witnesses domestic violence experiences an environment that, rather than exercising a protective function, becomes a source of anxiety and rupture, a phenomenon that articulates with what Winnicott (1979/1983, 58) calls environmental failure.

According to Winnicott (1979/1983, 39), the maternal figure occupies a central place in the psychic sustenance of the baby and young child. When this figure is subjected to violence, the child is confronted with the fragility of the one who should guarantee their security, which intensifies the experience of helplessness and compromises trust in the environment, as also observed by Bowlby (1988/2002, 92). This experience can hinder symbolization processes and the organization of early object relations, as Freud (1920/2010, 47) already indicated.

Contemporary studies also indicate that children exposed to domestic violence are at greater risk of developing emotional difficulties, relational problems, and symptoms of anxiety in adult life (Howell, Barnes, Miller & Graham-Bermann, 2016; Holt, Buckley & Whelan, 2008). Although such research is frequently developed in the field of developmental psychology and mental health, their conclusions dialogue with the psychoanalytic understanding of trauma as an experience that exceeds capacities for psychic elaboration.

Post-Freudian authors deepened this understanding by emphasizing the role of the environment and primary relations in the constitution of the subject. Winnicott (1979/1983, 53) demonstrates that environmental failures that threaten the continuity of being produce traumatic experiences even without direct aggression, while Ferenczi, in Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child (1933/1992, 65), points out that trauma is aggravated when the experience finds no recognition or welcoming. This is particularly relevant in contexts of silenced or naturalized domestic violence, as also observed by Freud in Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937/2010, 251).

According to Bowlby (1988/2002, 101), the child exposed to conjugal violence is not a mere spectator, but a subject profoundly affected by the instability of the parental bond. Despite this, they frequently occupy a secondary place in theoretical reflections, being seen only as a passive witness. Faced with this scenario, the present article proposes to analyze the effects of domestic violence witnessed in childhood on the psychic constitution of the subject in light of psychoanalysis, seeking to understand these experiences as traumatic experiences and their implications for clinical listening, as Freud (1920/2010, 50) already pointed out.

Methodology

This study is characterized as theoretical research of a qualitative nature, grounded in bibliographic review in the field of psychoanalysis. The investigation is based on the conceptual analysis of the contributions of Sigmund Freud and post-Freudian authors, especially Donald W. Winnicott and Sándor Ferenczi, regarding the concepts of trauma, helplessness, and environment in psychic development.

Classical works of psychoanalysis were examined, as well as contemporary productions related to domestic violence and its psychic effects in childhood. The analysis was conducted through theoretical interpretation of the central concepts of these authors, seeking to articulate such formulations to the understanding of domestic violence witnessed by children.

The objective of the analysis consists in understanding, in light of psychoanalytic theory, how exposure to domestic violence directed at the maternal figure can produce lasting effects on the psychic constitution of the subject.

The Concept of Trauma in Psychoanalysis

According to Freud, in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920/2010, 13), the concept of trauma occupies a central place in psychoanalytic theory as it refers to experiences that exceed the subject’s capacity for elaboration. Since his early writings, Freud (1926) does not conceive trauma merely as the effect of direct aggression, but as an experience marked by excess of excitation and rupture of the protective barriers of the psychic apparatus (Freud 1926/2011, 84, Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety), which compromises symbolization at the moment when the experience occurs (Freud 1920/2010, 29).

In studies on traumatic neuroses, Freud initially related trauma to external events that produced excessive impact on the psychic apparatus (Freud 1916–1917/2006, 327, Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis). Later, he expands this conception by stating that the traumatic character of an experience resides not only in the event, but in the way the subject is affected by it (Freud 1920/2010, 21). Thus, a situation becomes traumatic when it exceeds the psychic resources available for its elaboration, producing symptoms, anxieties, and repetitions, as Freud (1926/2011, 97) describes.

According to Freud (1920/2010, 23), trauma is directly linked to the notion of excess of excitation and failure in processes of psychic binding. When the subject is exposed to a quantity of stimuli for which they do not have sufficient symbolic means, a rupture of the protective barriers of the mental apparatus occurs, as Freud (1920/2010, 29) states. This rupture can occur even without direct aggression, as in contexts of witnessed domestic violence, which articulates with Winnicott’s idea of traumatic environment developed in The Environment and Processes of Maturation (1979/1983, 53).

According to Freud (1926/2011, 90), helplessness is a structural condition of human beings, especially in the early stages of life. The psychic organization of the child depends radically on the presence of caregiver figures who guarantee protection and continuity, as Winnicott (1979/1983, 45) also emphasizes. When the child witnesses violence directed at the mother, this protective function of the environment is broken, exposing them to an experience of insecurity that can operate as a traumatic experience, as Freud (1920/2010, 47) already indicated.

Post-Freudian authors expanded the understanding of trauma by highlighting the role of the environment and primary relations. Winnicott (1979/1983, 53) demonstrates that environmental failures that threaten the continuity of being produce traumatic experiences even in the absence of direct aggression, configuring a threat to the integration of the self. The child who witnesses violence against the mother experiences a rupture in the reliability of the environment, which compromises psychic organization, as also observed by Bowlby in Attachment and Loss (1988/2002, 77).

Ferenczi, in Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child (1933/1992, 65), describes trauma as intensified when the experience finds no recognition from the other, a process he terms disavowal. In contexts of domestic violence marked by silence and denial, the child frequently sees their emotional experience invalidated, which deepens the traumatic effects and compromises symbolization, as Freud also points out in Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937/2010, 251).

In this way, according to Freud (1920/2010, 50), trauma does not depend exclusively on direct aggression, but on exposure to situations that break the security of the environment and exceed possibilities for psychic elaboration. The child who witnesses domestic violence against the mother finds themselves inserted in a potentially traumatic scenario, whose effects bear upon psychic constitution, the organization of the self, and forms of relation with the other throughout life, as Winnicott (1979/1983, 58) and Bowlby (1988/2002, 92) also emphasize.

Domestic Violence Witnessed in Childhood as Traumatic Experience

According to Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920/2010, 13) and Bowlby in Attachment and Loss (1988/2002, 77), domestic violence produces psychic effects that exceed the direct impact of aggression, also reaching those who witness it continuously. In the case of the child, exposure to violence directed at the maternal figure can configure itself as a traumatic experience, even if they are not the direct target, as it compromises the protective function of the environment, as Winnicott describes in The Environment and Processes of Maturation (1979/1983, 45), reiterating the Freudian notion of helplessness (Freud 1926/2011, 90, Inhibition, Symptom and Anxiety).

According to Freud (1926/2011, 84), trauma is linked to the breaking of psychic security and the increase in the experience of helplessness. The child depends radically on the maternal figure for their emotional survival, as Bowlby (1988/2002, 92) also emphasizes, so that, upon witnessing the violence suffered by the mother, they encounter the fragility of the one who should guarantee protection and continuity, being confronted with anxiety and threat to the integrity of the bond, as Freud (1920/2010, 47) already indicated.

According to Freud (1920/2010, 23), trauma is related to an excess of excitation for which the subject does not have means of elaboration. In initial phases of development, this excess finds few symbolic resources, as Winnicott (1979/1983, 58) observes, making the repeated presence of violence favor traumatic inscription. Constant fear, anticipation of aggression, and environmental tension become organizers of subjective experience, as Freud (1926/2011, 97) describes.

According to Ferenczi in Confusion of Tongues Between Adults and the Child (1933/1992, 65), trauma is intensified when suffering finds no recognition, a process he terms disavowal. Silence, denial, or naturalization of violence impede the psychic elaboration of the experience, aggravating its effects, as Freud also points out in Analysis Terminable and Interminable (1937/2010, 251), when discussing the limits of symbolization in the face of excess.

According to Winnicott (1979/1983, 53), a sufficiently good environment is one capable of offering predictability, continuity, and emotional sustenance. In contexts of domestic violence, this environmental function is compromised, producing failures that affect the integration of the self and emotional development, as Bowlby (1988/2002, 101) also observes. Hostile or threatening environments favor defensive forms of psychic organization, as Freud (1920/2010, 44) already indicated when treating defenses against trauma.

According to Winnicott (1979/1983, 61), when the environment fails, the child may be called to occupy psychic positions that do not belong to them, such as caring for the other or emotionally sustaining the surroundings. In contexts of domestic violence, this manifests in the attempt to mediate conflicts or protect the mother, generating emotional confusion and compromising psychic differentiation, as Ferenczi (1933/1992, 72) also observes.

Finally, according to Freud (1920/2010, 50), experiences that break the security of the environment and exceed possibilities for elaboration produce lasting effects on psychic life. Domestic violence witnessed in childhood constitutes one of these potentially traumatic experiences, whose marks may reverberate throughout adult life, as Winnicott (1979/1983, 58) and Bowlby (1988/2002, 92) indicate, which makes its consideration fundamental in both theory and clinical practice.

Effects of Domestic Violence Witnessed in Childhood on the Psychic Constitution of the Subject

The psychic constitution of the subject is a process that develops from the first relations established in the family environment, being profoundly influenced by the quality of experiences lived in childhood, as Freud points out when discussing the formation of the psychic apparatus and Winnicott when highlighting the centrality of the environment in emotional development (Freud 1923/2011; Winnicott 1958/2022). When the child is exposed to domestic violence directed at the maternal figure, even if not a direct victim of aggression, this experience can produce significant effects on subjective organization, marking the way the subject relates to themselves, to the other, and to the world, as indicated by studies on trauma and object relations (Freud 1920/2010; Winnicott 1958/2022).

One of the main effects of this experience refers to the intensification of the experience of helplessness. The child, upon witnessing the violence suffered by the mother, is confronted with the fragility of the one who should guarantee care, protection, and emotional continuity, a situation that refers to the Freudian concept of Hilflosigkeit, or structural helplessness (translation of the concept according to the referenced edition of Freud 1926), which can assume traumatic contours when the environment fails (Freud 1926/2011). This situation can compromise trust in the environment and in the capacity of the other to exercise functions of support, favoring the emergence of precocious anxieties and a persistent sensation of insecurity (Winnicott 1958/2022).

Another relevant effect concerns difficulties in symbolization processes. Repeated exposure to violence can produce an excess of psychic excitation that exceeds the child’s possibilities for elaboration, especially when there is no space for the naming or elaboration of the experience, as Freud describes when treating trauma as failure of psychic binding (Freud 1920/2010). As a consequence, aspects of the traumatic experience may remain unsymbolized, manifesting themselves later through symptoms, enactments, or repetitions, since trauma tends to return in the form of repetition compulsion (Freud 1920/2010; Ferenczi 1985).

Violence witnessed in childhood can also interfere with the constitution of the first object relations. Ambivalence in relation to parental figures becomes frequent, since the father may be perceived simultaneously as a figure of authority and source of threat, while the mother may be experienced as an object of love and identification, but also as fragile or impotent, which compromises the internalization of reliable objects (Freud 1923/2011; Winnicott 1958/2022). This configuration can hinder the subject’s capacity to establish stable and secure bonds throughout life (Winnicott 1958/2022).

From the Winnicottian point of view, significant environmental failures can lead the subject to develop defensive forms of organization of the self. The child exposed to domestic violence may resort to strategies such as hypervigilance, excessive adaptation to the environment, or emotional inhibition, in the attempt to preserve some degree of continuity of being, which Winnicott (1958/2022) describes as a defense against the failures of the sufficiently good environment. Such defenses, although they fulfill a function of psychic protection at first, can restrict spontaneity and the expression of the true self (Winnicott 1958/2022).

Furthermore, the child may assume subjective positions that do not belong to them, such as that of caregiver to the mother, mediator of conflicts, or guardian of family silence, which refers to the Ferenczian notion of role reversal and identification with the aggressor or with the suffering of the other (Ferenczi 1985). These precocious positions can generate emotional confusion and compromise processes of psychic differentiation, favoring feelings of guilt, excessive responsibility, and difficulty in recognizing their own affects and needs (Ferenczi 1985; Winnicott 1958/2022).

In this way, the effects of domestic violence witnessed in childhood bear significantly upon the psychic constitution of the subject, influencing the organization of the self, modes of relation with the other, and possibilities for elaboration of suffering, as indicated by Freudian contributions on trauma and Winnicottian contributions regarding the environment (Freud 1920/2010; Winnicott 1958/2022). The understanding of these effects, from a psychoanalytic reading, allows not only deepening theoretical reflection, but also sustaining a clinical listening attentive to the marks left by precocious experiences of exposure to violence in the family environment.

Effects of Domestic Violence Witnessed in Childhood on Adult Life

As indicated by Freud (1920, 28–32) and deepened by Winnicott (1958/2022, 40–45), experiences lived in childhood exercise significant influence on the way the subject organizes themselves psychically throughout life. When the child witnesses, repeatedly, domestic violence directed at the maternal figure, these experiences may leave marks that update themselves in adult life, manifesting themselves through psychic suffering, relational difficulties, and specific modes of positioning themselves before the other and themselves, as Ferenczi (1985, 89–94) describes when addressing unsymbolized trauma. Even if the traumatic event is not present consciously, its effects may persist as traits that traverse subjective history, reappearing in repetition and symptoms, as formulated by Freud (1920, 33–41).

According to Freud in Beyond the Pleasure Principle (1920, 34–38), one of the most recurrent effects of trauma refers to the repetition of relational patterns marked by violence, submission, or emotional instability. From the psychoanalytic perspective, this repetition can be understood as an unconscious attempt at elaboration of trauma, in which the subject reencounters, in different scenarios, experiences that refer to the unsymbolized infantile experience, as Laplanche and Pontalis (1967/2001, 430–433) clarify when defining repetition compulsion. Thus, individuals who witnessed domestic violence may, in adult life, establish affective bonds in which they place themselves in positions similar to those lived in childhood, either identifying with the assaulted figure, or tolerating or naturalizing abusive relations, as Freud (1920, 39–41) also notes.

As Freud (1926, 110–118) demonstrates when articulating anxiety and helplessness, another significant effect concerns difficulties in emotional regulation and in the experience of anxiety. Precocious exposure to an environment marked by fear and unpredictability can compromise the subject’s capacity to recognize, name, and elaborate their affects, which Winnicott (1958/2022, 47–52) describes as failure in primary emotional sustenance. In adult life, this can manifest itself through states of persistent anxiety, diffuse feelings of threat, hypervigilance, or difficulty in dealing with interpersonal conflicts, revealing marks of precocious traumatic experiences that could not be symbolized, as Freud (1926, 119–125) indicates.

According to Bowlby (1988, 120–134), the rupture of trust in caregiver figures profoundly compromises the capacity to establish secure bonds, and this formulation dialogues with the Winnicottian understanding of environmental failure (Winnicott 1958/2022, 55–60). The child who witnesses violence against the mother experiences a rupture in the reliability of the environment and in the protective function of parental figures. In adult life, this experience can reverberate in difficulty trusting the other, in fear of intimacy, or, paradoxically, in the incessant search for relations that offer a sense of security that could not be established in childhood, producing persistent relational impasses, as Winnicott (1958/2022, 61–66) observes.

From the point of view of the constitution of the self, Winnicott (1965, 140–148) states that significant environmental failures can lead the subject to organize themselves defensively through a false self. The child exposed to domestic violence may develop an excessive adaptation to the environment, sacrificing their spontaneity to maintain some degree of continuity of being. Individuals who grew up in these contexts frequently present difficulties in recognizing their needs, expressing emotions, or sustaining their own subjective positions, prioritizing care for the other to the detriment of themselves, as Winnicott (1958/2022, 149–155) details.

Ferenczi (1985, 92–97) shows that, when the child is placed in positions that do not belong to them, such as that of caregiver or mediator of adult suffering, a form of structural guilt linked to trauma is installed. Thus, feelings of guilt and excessive responsibility are frequently observed in the adult life of those who witnessed domestic violence in childhood. This dynamic can translate into relations marked by emotional overload, difficulty establishing limits, and psychic suffering associated with failure to meet others’ expectations, which Freud (1926, 119–125) also articulates to neurotic anxiety.

Finally, Freud (1920, 41–45) demonstrates that trauma returns in the form of repetition, symptom, and psychic suffering, while Winnicott (1958/2022, 160–168) emphasizes that precocious failures of the environment leave lasting marks on the organization of the self and Ferenczi (1985, 100–105) evidences that disavowal deepens traumatic impact. In this way, the effects of domestic violence witnessed in childhood are not restricted to the infantile period, but update themselves in adult life in a singular manner, traversing bonds, emotional organization, and the subject’s relation to themselves, demanding a clinical listening attentive to the marks of these precocious experiences.

Final Considerations

The present study sought to analyze the effects of domestic violence witnessed in childhood on the psychic constitution of the subject, from a psychoanalytic reading. Throughout the work, it was possible to understand that trauma is not limited to the experience of direct aggression, but can inscribe itself deeply when the child is exposed to an environment marked by violence, fear, and rupture of the protective function of parental figures, especially the mother.

From the contributions of Freud (1920, 32–45) and post-Freudian authors, such as Winnicott (1958/2022, 40) and Ferenczi (1985, 97–106), it was observed that the traumatic character of witnessed violence resides in the excess of psychic excitation and in the impossibility of symbolization of the experience, as well as in environmental failures that compromise the continuity of being. The child who witnesses domestic violence experiences an intensification of helplessness, since the environment, which should offer security and care, becomes a source of threat and instability.

The effects of these experiences can manifest themselves significantly throughout adult life, traversing affective relations, emotional organization, and the modes by which the subject positions themselves before the other and themselves. Difficulties in bonds, repetition of relational patterns marked by violence or submission, problems in emotional regulation, and persistent feelings of guilt and excessive responsibility were understood as possible unfoldings of precocious traumatic experiences not elaborated.

In view of this, psychoanalysis offers a privileged field for listening to these marks, by considering trauma in its subjective and singular dimension. Psychoanalytic clinical practice makes possible the creation of a space in which the traumatic experience can, gradually, find words, allowing processes of symbolization and elaboration that were not possible at the moment of the experience. The listening to the subject who witnessed domestic violence in childhood demands attention to repetitions, silences, and defensive forms that constituted themselves as attempts at psychic survival.

Finally, the importance of amplifying theoretical and clinical reflections on domestic violence witnessed in childhood is emphasized, recognizing the child not merely as a passive spectator, but as a subject profoundly affected by these experiences. The understanding of these effects contributes not only to the advancement of the psychoanalytic field, but also to clinical and social practices more sensitive to the marks of trauma and to the possibilities of care and elaboration of psychic suffering.

References

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[^1]: The present manuscript is partially in accordance with the norms of the journal International Journal of Psychoanalysis (ISSN: 1745-8315).

[^2]: The years referring to the works cited in the present study use the following format: Original year of publication/Year of consulted edition.