Margaret Mahler Flashcards
What is the focus of Mahler’s model?
Focus on growth from the unity of ‘I’ and ‘not-I’ to eventual separation and individuation
Definition of separation according to Mahler:
child’s emergence from a symbiotic fusion with the mother
–> differentiation between the infant and the mother
Definition of individuation according to Mahler:
consists of those achievements marking the child’s assumption of his own individual characteristics
–> development of infant’s ego, sense of identity, cognitive abilities
What are the periods of development according to Mahler?
- Normal autism
- Symbiotic phase
- Separation-individuation process (four subphases)
–>Each step is strongly influenced by the nature of the mother-infant interaction - early gratification and emotional availability of the mother
(Mahler) First phase: Normal autism:
infant’s state in the first few weeks of life
- Experiences are limited to pleasure (good) vs. painful (bad) qualities
- Infant is surrounded by ‘autistic shell which keeps external stimuli out’
(Mahler) Second phase: Symbiotic phase:
from second month on
- Dim awareness of the need satisfying object
- Undifferentiated fusion with the mother
- Circular interaction: infant adaptively alters its behavior in response to mother’s selective reactions to the cues with which the infant presents her
- -> Satisfactory symbiotic phase development as source of benevolent feelings about the self and toward the object
(Mahler) What are the four sub-phases of the Separation-individuation process?
- Differentiation (4 to 9 months)
- Practicing (9 to 15-18 months)
- Rapprochement (15-18 to 24 months)
- Consolidation of individuality and the beginning of emotional object constancy (begins with the third year of life)
(Mahler) Third phase: Separation-individuation process:
begins at four to five months and has 4 sub-phases:
- Differentiation (4 to 9 months): turning away from the mother, thus beginning to differentiate himself from her
- Practicing (9 to 15-18 months): child practices locomotion
- peak of his belief in his own magical omnipotence
- exploration of environment, returning to mother for ‘emotional refueling’
- emerging aggression in the service of both separation and individuation
- Rapprochement (15-18 to 24 months):
- greater awareness of separateness, separation anxiety, increased need to be with mother
- ‘ambitendency’ (e.g. clinging to mother while pushing her away)
- Consolidation of individuality and the beginning of emotional object constancy (begins with the third year of life):
- main task is achievement of individuality and affective object constancy
- affective object constancy: cognitive symbolic inner representations of the object has been established
- other tasks: internalization of parental demands, unifying good and bad representations into integrated whole, establishment of gender identity
What is Mahler’s model point of view on psychopathology?
- Model of psychopathology based on developmental imbalances in childhood
- Narcissistic personalities:
2.1. seen as lacking in ‚narcissistic libido‘
2.2. healthy self-regard – caused by
deficient soothing and emotional refueling during early phases
2.3. failure to empathically support child during rapprochement phase leads to collapse of omnipotence
–> fixation occurs and renunciation of omnipotence and narcissistic enhancement from within will be jeopardized
–>individuals have difficulty in tolerating criticisms, setbacks and ambivalence
(Mahler) What does the model say about the relationship between separation-individuation and psychopathology?
- Rapprochement subphase:
- seen as the ‚critical period‘ of character formation
- crucial conflicts between separateness and closeness, autonomy and dependency, are repeated throughout development
- observations: some mothers responded to returning infants in rapprochement sub-phase with either aggression or withdrawal, behavior of infants was similar to borderline patients
- residues of rapprochement subphase conflicts are seen in borderline patients in form of persistent longing for, and dread of, fusion with the mother, continued splitting of self- and object representations preventing establishment of object constancy and identity
Some empirical evidence for Mahler‘s view
- According to Mahler: first half of first year, infant‘s psychic functioning is dominated by pleasure principle
- Structuring of the mind into id and ego, and development of oppositions of self and other, inner and outer, have not yet taken place
- Evidence from infant research casts doubt:
- newborn is sensitive to specific kinds of external stimuli such as human face, voice
- infant is able to differentiate degrees of contingency between his actions and events (3 months of age; e.g. moving mobile through kicking)
- innate coordination of perception and action – newborn‘s imitation
- Lack of object permanence during first year of life has been questioned
- object permanence based on Piagetian manual search task developed relatively late
- looking time tasks: earlier representation of continuous existence of hidden object shown
- Mahler‘s developmental framework may be appropriate to psychological world of human infants – whereas infant is aware of himself and object in physical domain, this does not necessarily apply to infant‘s mental or psychological self
(Mahler) Evaluation: Critisism:
- Mahler‘s theory generally accepted
- Has strengthened the tendency to reconstruct psychoanalytic situation as a developmental one
- Contributions of understanding of borderline personality disorder have been most lasting
- Critics:
- while research confirms Mahler‘s theory that serious disorders are evident from the first months of life, her implications that they are caused by the social events in this period has not been substantiated
- focus on mother, without considering relationship to father
