I'm not sure what Depletion had in mind of course, but there is a foundational article by Ferenczi (Confusion of Tongues) about childhood trauma that takes up what seems to be at first an unexpected response seen in children, which is that they don't necessarily rebel or try to get away from the adult, but the opposite. He called this the identification with the aggressor and said this:

The most important change, produced in the mind of the child by the anxiety-fear-ridden identification with the adult partner, is the introjection of the guilt feelings of the adult which makes hitherto harmless play appear as a punishable offense.

So the child becomes "bad" via introjection because defenses aren't working.