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The above and comparable studies in the field of infant research and attachment in Europe (D. N. Stern, 1985; Trevarthen, 2001; Fonagy, Gergely, Jurist & Target, 2002; Ammaniti & Trentini, 2009; Cortina & Liotti, 2010) consistently support the view of personality organized in terms of ‘self-with-other’, where the interaction between two subjects is the necessary condition for psychic development as well as for psychological cure (See also separate entries OBJECT RELATIONS THEORIES and INTERSUBJECTIVITY). Developmental neuroscientists have suggested that there may be a ‘virtual other’ in the brain whose outlines get filled in with experience (Bråten, 2011). Mirror Neuron Systems (Gallese, Eagle and Migone, 2007) are thought to be a possible element in such innately given ‘interpersonality’. Neuro-analytic studies of right brain structures and activities implicated in the unconscious processes of the ‘implicit self’ of Allan Schore (2011) are also relevant in this regard.
VI. Db. Mahler and Stern: Integration of Research and Theory Margaret Mahler
An émigré from her native Vienna to New York, where she lived and worked most of her adult life, Margaret Mahler’s influence is felt acutely across both continents, North America as much as Europe. Her theory of Separation and Individuation developed out of her extensive work and studies of children with severe pathologies of autism and ‘symbiotic psychosis’. Directly relevant to child analytic work her is her notion of symbiotic origins of human existence, with the Self emerging through complementary processes of separation and individuation, which structure the internalized representations of the Self, distinct from the internal representations of objects. The phases and sub-phases of Separation-Individuation process include pre- separational Autism and Symbiosis, and Separation-Individuation proper with sub-phases of Differentiation/’Hatching’; Practicing, Rapprochement, and ‘On the way to Object Constancy’. (For specification, see chapter IV.B. of this entry above) Daniel N. Stern A North American trained analyst, active in both North America and Europe, Stern (1985) has elaborated a model of the development of the Self by integrating the insights of the infant research with psychoanalytic theory. At birth, the infant experiences the world as a barrage of seemingly unrelated sensory stimuli, which s/he gradually learns to “yoke” together using cues such as the “hedonic tone” (emotional quality), and temporal and intensity patterns shared between stimuli. This process of integrating and organizing experience, called the emergent sense of Self, continues until about two months. It serves as the basis for the child’s ability to learn and create.
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