Concept
Symbiotic phase
The stage Mahler placed from about the second month to the fourth or fifth, in which the infant dimly perceives the mother as the source of satisfaction but behaves and feels as though it and she were one all-powerful system, a 'dual unity' within a single shared boundary. A good enough symbiosis was for Mahler the ground from which the child later 'hatches' into separateness; failure to enter it, or to leave it, lay at the root of the infantile psychoses she studied.
- Introduced by
- Margaret Mahler
- Key works
- 2
- Related
introduced by
- Margaret Mahler In Mahler's scheme, from about the second month the infant behaves as though it and the mother were a dual unity within one common boundary. Separation-individuation begins from this phase.
gave rise to
- Symbiotic psychosis Mahler explained symbiotic psychosis as a fixation at, or regression to, the symbiotic phase, when the child fails to differentiate a self from the mother.
derives from
- Primary love Mahler owed the idea of a mother-infant dual unity, which became her symbiotic phase, to the Balints and to Therese Benedek. The link to the Balints' primary love is therefore one of origin; the two concepts are not the same.