Article
Thoughts about Development and Individuation
What it shows
Margaret Mahler introduced 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.
Margaret Mahler introduced Practicing subphase
The second subphase, from about ten to eighteen months. Newly mobile, the toddler explores away from the mother in what Mahler called a love affair with the world, returning to her to refuel emotionally.