parental caregiver, the child loses their real place in the family unit and is left lonely and unsure. In extreme instances, there may be what has been called a kind of disembodiment, a narcissistic wound that threatens one's basic self-identity. In later life, parentified children often experience anxiety over abandonment and loss, and demonstrate difficulty handling rejection and disappointment within interpersonal relationships. Boszormenyi-Nagy et al. are among the researchers who have argued that parentification is not always maladaptive. Researchers of this view say that children may benefit from being treated as capable individuals and taking on the role of supporting and caring for their family. Researchers have speculated that parentification may enhance empathy, altruism, and responsibility levels for a child. The child may pursue a career in the mental health field. The positive effects are likely because the parentification was temporary and moderate, which is an aspect of adaptive parentification. Adaptive parentification can manifest if the parent is vital to their child's development and expresses to the child their awareness of and appreciation for the child assuming the parental role. Adaptive parentification may not be role reversal when it is instrumental rather than emotional caretaking, temporary and without heavy burden, and when the child is treated fairly by their parents and has their support. Instead of being an aspect of psychopathology, it is a coping mechanism for stress. Case studies Carl Jung in his late autobiography reports that his mother always spoke to him as an adult, confiding in him what she could not share with her husband. Laurens van der Post commented on the grown-up atmosphere surrounding the young Jung, and considered that "this activation of the pattern of the "old man" within himself...was all a consequence of the extent to which his father and mother failed each other". Patrick Casement reports on a patient – Mr T – whose mother was distressed at any and all his feelings, and who therefore protected her from them – mothering her himself. Literary examples The Tale of Genji tells that for "Kaoru's mother...her son's visits were her chief pleasure. Sometimes he almost seemed more like a father than a son – a fact which he was aware of and thought rather sad". Charles Dickens' "Angel in the house" characters, particularly Agnes Wickfield in David Copperfield, are parentified children. Agnes is forced to be the parent of her alcoholic father and seems