Van Gogh a famous replacement child acted out is life through replacement rather than art. His painting was a medium he used to struggle to find an identity that was him not another.

Not only was he a replacement child he was named after the dead child who he replaced. He spent a life looking for a mother to look after him as he was never mothered as himself. Imagine when you are looked at by another – they do not look into your eyes – but slightly off to the side – as the mother’s gaze is still fixed on the dead child he was replacing.

The impact for the replacement child is devestating. Even pre-birth in the womb they absorb the mother’s distress of the death of her child. And the fear that the replacement child might not survive like the previous child.

Andre Green called the grief the mother suffered as ‘white grief‘ where the inner loss turns the relationship to the new baby as physically present but emotionally absent. Creating a lifelong craving for a mother figure that was never there. Depending on your point of view – this is a treatable trauma or a permanent characteristic.

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