CAS PS 251 Lecture Notes - Lecture 7: Margaret Mahler, Pseudobulbar Affect, Individuation
30 Oct 2018
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Document Summary
This process is never finished and reverberates throughout the life cycle. The process or achievements by which a child develops and begins to identify with their own individuality. Marks the child"s assumption of his/her own uniqueness. Separation the process of a child"s understanding that they are separate from his mother - an emergence out of the symbiotic fusion. Awareness of separateness is a precondition for true object relationship. Separation and individuation of these processes are complementary and proceed divergently. Failures in separation-individuation processes can cause disturbances in the child"s self-identity. You need an awareness of separateness before you can create a true object relationship. Without this awareness, the ego apparatuses won"t work because you can"t form an actual representation of reality. You need to study normal behavior to understand abnormal behavior. The child has no understanding of separation from the rest of reality. Senses are functional but not differentially identifiable.
