Book
On Human Symbiosis and the Vicissitudes of Individuation, Vol. 1: Infantile Psychosis
Margaret Mahler's monograph, written in collaboration with Manuel Furer and published in 1968 as the first of a planned two-volume study, gathers her work on psychotic children into a single theory of early development and its failures. It first sets out the concepts of symbiosis and separation-individuation: the infant passes from an early, objectless phase of normal autism into a symbiotic dual unity with the mother, out of which a separate self gradually emerges. On this basis it presents the symbiosis theory of infantile psychosis, which reads the psychoses of early childhood as derailments of that sequence, and distinguishes autistic from symbiotic forms. Later chapters take up diagnosis, clinical case material and recurrent patterns of mother–child interaction, and describe the treatment Mahler and Furer developed in New York, in which the mother takes part in the child's sessions. The book draws on non-analytic developmental research such as Piaget's and Werner's, ends with a summary of the theory, and has a bibliography of more than four hundred items.
Main ideas
- Normal development runs from an objectless phase of normal autism, through a symbiotic phase in which infant and mother form a dual unity, to separation-individuation.
- Infantile psychosis is understood as a derailment of this sequence: the child either cannot make use of the mother as a symbiotic partner or cannot move out of symbiosis towards a separate self.
- Two clinical pictures are distinguished: autistic psychosis, in which the child shuts out the mother and the human world, and symbiotic psychosis, in which the child clings to fusion with her and is overwhelmed by separateness.
- Diagnosis is discussed through clinical case material and recurrent patterns of interaction between psychotic children and their mothers.
- Treatment follows a tripartite design developed by Mahler and Furer, in which the mother takes part in the child's sessions with the therapist.
- The psychoanalytic theory is set beside non-analytic developmental research, notably that of Piaget and Werner.
What it shows
Margaret Mahler collaborated with 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.
Margaret Mahler introduced Normal autistic phase
Mahler's name for the first weeks of life, when the infant is turned toward its own bodily sensations rather than toward the outside world. Later infant research, notably Daniel Stern's, contested the idea.
Margaret Mahler introduced Symbiotic phase
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.
- 1968
Manuel Furer developed Symbiotic psychosis
Furer was Mahler's collaborator on the 1968 study of infantile psychosis, which grew out of their joint work with psychotic children and their mothers.
Symbiotic psychosis derives from Symbiotic phase
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.