Concept
Rapprochement subphase
The third subphase of separation-individuation in Mahler's scheme, from about sixteen or eighteen months to two years or a little more. The toddler, now aware of being separate and small, turns back toward the mother, wanting to share every discovery with her, while insisting at the same time on its autonomy. The clash between the longing for closeness and the wish for independence can come to a head in a 'rapprochement crisis' of clinging and pushing away, shadowing the mother and darting off from her. Mahler held that how the mother meets this crisis, and how it is resolved, shapes later moods, and that a failure here can leave the split between good and bad images of self and other found in borderline patients.
Development
1972
Margaret Mahler introduced by
The third subphase, from about eighteen months to two and a half years. The toddler, now aware of being separate, renews its demands on the mother, and the conflict between autonomy and dependence comes to a head in the rapprochement crisis. Mahler gave it a dedicated paper in 1972.
Relations
- 1972 introduced by Margaret Mahler
The third subphase, from about eighteen months to two and a half years. The toddler, now aware of being separate, renews its demands on the mother, and the conflict between autonomy and dependence comes to a head in the rapprochement crisis. Mahler gave it a dedicated paper in 1972.
Works
- 1975
The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation
The book by Margaret Mahler, Fred Pine and Anni Bergman, published in 1975, is the first full theoretical account of normal separation-individuation. It grew out of the authors' observational research on mothers and young children in New York. It starts from the claim that the biological birth of a human infant and its psychological birth do not coincide. Biological birth is a single visible event; psychological birth is a slow inner process that unfolds over the first three years. Separation is the child's emergence from a symbiotic fusion with the mother. Individuation is the child's taking on of characteristics of its own. After an introduction and a history of the research setting, the book describes the forerunners of the process, normal autism and symbiosis. It then takes up the four subphases one by one: differentiation and the development of the body image; practicing; rapprochement; and the consolidation of individuality together with the beginnings of emotional object constancy. A further part follows five children, Bruce, Donna, Wendy, Teddy and Sam, through the subphases. Reflections follow on variations within the subphases, on the development of separation anxiety, basic mood and early identity, on core identity and the boundaries of the self, and on the significance of the rapprochement crisis. A final section sets out the research method: what data were collected, the reasoning behind the study and the strategies used to analyse the observations as systematic clinical research.
See also
People
References
- Rapprochement Subphase of the Separation-Individuation Process1972 Evidence for a relation
- The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation1975 Evidence for a relation