I Hate You--Don't Leave Me - Jerold J. Kreisman [31]
During the entire separation-individuation period, the developing child begins to sketch out boundaries between self and others, a task complicated by two central conflicts—the desire for autonomy versus closeness and dependency needs, and fear of engulfment versus fear of abandonment.
A further complicating factor during this time is that the developing infant tends to perceive each individual in the environment as two separate personae. For example, when mother is comforting and sensitive, she is seen as “all-good.” When she is unavailable or unable to comfort and soothe, she is perceived as a separate, “all-bad” mother. When she leaves his sight, the infant perceives her as annihilated, gone forever, and cries for her return to relieve the despair and panic. As the child develops, this normal “splitting” is replaced by a healthier integration of mother’s good and bad traits, and separation anxiety is replaced by the knowledge that mother exists even when she is not physically present and will, in time, return—a phenomenon commonly known as object constancy (see page 67). Prevailing over these developmental milestones is the child’s developing brain, which can sabotage normal adaptation.
Mahler divides separation-individuation into four overlapping subphases.
DIFFERENTIATION PHASE (5-8 MONTHS). In this phase of development, the infant becomes aware of a world separate from mother. “Social smiling” begins—a reaction to the environment, but directed mostly at mother. Near the end of this phase, the infant displays the opposite side of this same response—“stranger anxiety”—the recognition of unfamiliar people in the environment.
If the relationship with mother is supportive and comforting, reactions to strangers are mainly characterized by curious wonder. If the relationship is unsupportive, anxiety is more prominent; the child begins to divide positive and negative emotions toward other individuals, relying on splitting to cope with these conflicting emotions.
PRACTICING PHASE (8-16 MONTHS). The practicing phase is marked by the infant’s increasing ability to move away from mother, first by crawling, then by walking. These short separations are punctuated by frequent reunions to “check in” and “refuel,” behavior that demonstrates the child’s first ambivalence toward his developing autonomy.
RAPPROCHEMENT PHASE (16-25 MONTHS). In the rapprochement phase, the child’s expanding world sparks the recognition that he possesses an identity separate from those around him. Reunions with mother and the need for her approval shape the deepening realization that she and others are separate, real people. It is in the rapprochement phase, however, that both child and mother confront conflicts that will determine future vulnerability to the borderline syndrome.
The mother’s role during this time is to encourage the child’s experiments with individuation, yet simultaneously provide a constant, supportive, refueling reservoir. The normal two-year-old not only develops a strong bond with parents but also learns to separate temporarily from them with sadness rather than with rage or tantrum. When reunited with the parent, the child is likely to feel happy as well as angry over the separation. The nurturing mother empathizes with the child and accepts the anger without retaliation. After many separations and reunions, the child develops an enduring sense of self, love and trust for parents, and a healthy ambivalence toward others.
The mother of a pre-borderline, however, tends to respond to her child in a different way—either by pushing her child away prematurely and discouraging reunion (perhaps due to her own fear of closeness) or by insisting on a clinging symbiosis (perhaps due to her own fear of abandonment and need for intimacy). In either case, the child becomes burdened by intense fears of abandonment and/or engulfment that are mirrored back to him by mother’s own fears.
As a result, the child never