Concept
Separation-individuation
Margaret Mahler's name for the slow inner process, running from about the fourth or fifth month of life into the third year, by which an infant emerges from a felt oneness with the mother into the sense of being a separate person with a self of its own. Separation is the child's growing awareness of being apart from the mother; individuation is the growth of the capacities, such as walking, speech and memory, through which the child takes on a character of its own. Mahler divided the process into four overlapping subphases (differentiation, practicing, rapprochement, and the way toward object constancy) and called its outcome the 'psychological birth' of the infant, which, unlike biological birth, unfolds over years.
Development
1975
Anni Bergman developed by
Bergman took part in the Masters Children's Center observations from 1959 and co-authored the 1975 book that set out the separation-individuation theory.
1975
Fred Pine developed by
As co-author of The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (1975), Pine helped systematise the separation-individuation theory from the observational data.
Undated
Margaret Mahler introduced by
Mahler formulated the theory from observing ordinary mothers and infants in New York, distinguishing the child's psychological birth from its biological birth. She set it out in papers from the late 1950s and 1960s and fully in the 1975 book with Pine and Bergman.
Relations
- 1975 developed by Anni Bergman
Bergman took part in the Masters Children's Center observations from 1959 and co-authored the 1975 book that set out the separation-individuation theory.
- 1975 developed by Fred Pine
As co-author of The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (1975), Pine helped systematise the separation-individuation theory from the observational data.
- introduced by Margaret Mahler
Mahler formulated the theory from observing ordinary mothers and infants in New York, distinguishing the child's psychological birth from its biological birth. She set it out in papers from the late 1950s and 1960s and fully in the 1975 book with Pine and Bergman.
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
- The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation1975 Evidence for a relation
- Thoughts about Development and Individuation1963 Evidence for a relation