Person
Margaret Mahler
Hungarian-born physician and psychoanalyst who trained in Vienna and worked in New York from 1938. From observing mothers and young children she described separation–individuation, the process by which an infant emerges from a symbiotic tie with the mother into a separate sense of self, set out in The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (1975, with Fred Pine and Anni Bergman). Her phases of development were widely used to explain severe personality disorders.
- Born
- 1897
- Died
- 1985
- Influenced
analysed by
- Helene Deutsch 1926 Mahler's first training analysis, begun in Vienna in 1926. Deutsch ended it after about a year and declared her unanalysable.
- Willi Hoffer 1930 Mahler's training analysis with Hoffer, from 1930 to 1935. It completed her Viennese training.
- August Aichhorn After the failed analysis with Deutsch, Mahler was analysed by Aichhorn, which got her readmitted to the Vienna training institute. The analysis ended when the two became romantically involved.
introduced
- Symbiotic psychosis 1952 In her 1952 paper on child psychosis Mahler set the symbiotic psychoses of early childhood apart from the autistic ones. She later grounded the distinction in the normal autistic and symbiotic phases.
- Rapprochement subphase 1972 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.
- Separation-individuation 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.
collaborated with
- Anni Bergman 1959 From 1959 Bergman worked with Mahler on the observational study of infants and mothers at the Masters Children's Center in New York, and she co-authored the 1975 book on separation-individuation.
- Fred Pine 1975 Pine co-authored The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant (1975) with Mahler and Bergman. The book reports their observational research on separation-individuation.
- Manuel Furer Mahler and Furer worked together on the treatment and study of psychotic children. Their tripartite mother-child-therapist treatment led to the 1968 volume on infantile psychosis, written by Mahler in collaboration with Furer.