Invisibility

A care situation can rob a separated child of a healthy dose of intimacy. This creates an enormous internal conflict: If the only way to avoid attention is to remain invisible – if attention is usually negative – how can there be any chance of intimacy?

But there is another cost to invisibility: A person in care may act invisible because they want to avoid trouble: On the other hand, they may feel invisible because they are just one in a sea of many. 

At some point, a person who is invisible becomes aware of a sense of powerlessness, and they will feel violated. At its most extreme, being invisible renders someone a ‘non-person’. 
It is precisely for this reason that ‘sending someone to Coventry’ can be a terrible punishment for anyone. In a social context, when people are ostracised like this, they become exiles in their own world.

When this sense of being ‘invisibled’ becomes unbearable a person can either run away, accept it or fight it. Running from an institution was a good way to invite some fairly extreme punishment. 


The fight response to being invisibled is at the core of a great many social problems today – such as gang membership, so-called race riots or even shooting sprees. Most often, it probably just reveals itself as domestic violence.

Alternatively, when people resign themselves to being invisibled this can lead to severe depression, or trouble building a good future for themselves.