Separation - Individuation Process (Margaret Mahler)

Quick Facts

- Studied infant-mother interaction and the process through which the infant individuates from the mother.

- Focused on Object Relations, which is the process by which the infant struggles, over the first few years, to differentiate between self and non-self.

- The nature of the early relationship with the child's mother becomes the pattern for future relationships.

- Mahler's primary focus was on the differentiation of self and other mental images over the first three years and the impact of this process on personality.

Mahler's Developmental Theory - Stage 1 (Normal Autism: Birth - 1 month of age)

- The infant's sense of self is fragmented at birth and there is little evidence that the child is aware of others. (SELFISH)

- Child primarily responds to internal stimuli, represents the initial process of differentiating between pleasant and unpleasant feelings.

Stage 2 - Symbiosis or Normal Symbiotic: 1-4 months of age

- Symbiosis refers to attachment of the infant to the mother or primary caregiver. Child views the caregiver as an object which is a source of gratification. Child is now aware of his caregiver but there is no sense of individuality.

- The importance of the mother or caregiver giving sufficient gratification to the infant's needs. Lack of such leads to symbiotic psychosis, ex. severe mental disorder.

Stage 3 - Separation - Individuation: 4-8 months through 36 months of age

- Child a few months old breaks out of an autistic shell into the world with human connections.

-This process is divided in substages.

- Disruptions in the fundamental process of separation-individuation can result in a disturbance in the ability to maintain a reliable sense of individual identity in adulthood.

Stage 3 Substages - Differentiation from Other/Hatching (4-8 months)

- The child recognizes that he or she is separate from his or her mother, which results in separation anxiety in the infant.

Practicing (8-15 Months)

- Increasing in infants motor skills, engaging in the separation practice, develops the ability to separate and rejoin with the parent.

Rapprochement (15-24 Months)

- Characterized by the infant's efforts at autonomous function, infant becomes close with mother once again.

- Child realizes that her physical mobility demonstrates psychic separateness from her mother.

- Infant becomes tentative, wanting her mother to be in sight so that, through eye contact and action, she can explore the world.

- Risk is that the mother will misread this need and respond with impatience or unavailability. This can lead to an anxious fear of abandonment in the toddler.

Achievement of Individuality (24-36 months through 4 years of age)

- Mother is now seen as separate.

- Child's internalization of the integrated image of the mother (good and bad representations) results in object constancy (attachment is retained in the face of inconsistency in satisfaction of the child's needs, both good and bad).

-Final outcome is an individual identity for the child.