The subjectivity of the mother in the mother–son relationship. Attachment,separation, and autonomy

Abstract

Margaret Mahler and John Bowlby's positions are crucial in understanding the tensions that can arise in mother–son relationships. A more recent development of a systems view illuminates the co-construction of this relationship that occurs mainly out of awareness. A systems model of development that describes the co-construction and bi-directional influence between mothers and sons will be used in this paper. The often-neglected subjectivity of the mother is the focus, and the relationship between the mother and her adult son is viewed as a process whereby all participants strive to achieve a balance among attachment, separation, and autonomy. In addition, the contributions of the mother and the impact on her of the son's difficulties in attachment, separation, and autonomy are highlighted. In a case illustration, the subjectivity of the mother in relation to her son is explicated, showing how the son distances himself from his mother and why themother is at a loss to understand how and why this has occurred. The mother's perspective was dominated by anger and disappointment toward her son as well as by self-blame and self-justification. As a result of psychotherapy, the mother was enabled to come to terms with the estrangement of her son.     

Effectiveness of Primiparae and Multiparae at Soothing Their Newborn Infants

To examine the effectiveness of new parents at soothing their infants, the authors filmed primiparae (20 mothers, 20 fathers) and, for comparison, multiparae (25 mothers, 25 fathers) during an interaction with their crying 2- to 3-day-old infants. Data were derived from loudness ratings of the infants' distress signals and by measuring the time it took parents to quiet their infants. In addition, specific parental behaviors were coded by microanalysis. From these data, measures of soothing effectiveness and behavioral profiles were derived. Data analyses showed that most primiparae were effective at soothing their infants' cries and that there were no parity effects on measures of soothing effectiveness. However, mothers, regardless of parity, were more effective at quieting their infants than were fathers, and there were significant differences in mothers' and fathers' caregiving behaviors. These data suggest that primiparae are effective at quickly soothing their newborns and that their skill, as measured, does not depend on parenting experience. Moreover, the data point to significant differences in mothers' and fathers' competence at quieting their newborns whether or not they are experienced at parenting.     

Spiritual Maturity and Wholeness – A Concept Whose Time Has Come

SUMMARY

Legal advocates, clergy and politicians have all been challenged by the concept of the separation of church and state since the first European set foot on the American continent. Two schools of thought have been developed for this unique problem in the United States. Roger Williams took the position that there needs to be a separation of church and state in order to keep the church pure from the politics and every day work of the state. Thomas Jefferson, who is often attributed with developing this concept, took the position that the need for this separation was to protect the state from the church. Both positions often get articulated as if they are one concept in the United States. However, they are very different. This debate has carried itself in the current millennium into the work of the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives as well as the legislation known as Charitable Choice.     

母婴分离的动物模型及其神经生物学机制

利用社会环境剥夺建立的精神分裂症动物模型,是当前研究精神分裂症神经生物学机制的一个热点课题.作为一种重要的早期社会剥夺方式,出生后至断乳前的母婴分离日益受到关注.文章综合阐述了母婴分离对啮齿类动物行为及神经发育影响的最新研究成果,表明母婴分离可以部分模拟精神分裂症的行为及中枢表现,证实了该模型的可行性;并进一步分析了影响实验结果的各种相关因素,为今后采用该模型进行深入研究提供一定的理论支持.     

Transition and transience: Winnicott on leaving and dying

The author offers reminiscences and reflections on Donald Winnicott during the last phase of his life and considers the personal and theoretical importance for him of the topic of death. The author goes on to examine similarities and differences between Winnicott's concepts of coming into being and ceasing to be.     

One life between two people: Some themes from the analysis of a nine-to-fifteen-year-old anorexic girl

The author discusses four inter-related themes of late adolescence: birth/death throes, oblivious objects, manic defences and the potential for physical symptoms, sometimes in emergency form. These issues will be elucidated through the psychoanalysis of a late adolescent who was bulimic and binge drinking. Though her symptoms were severe, elements of her dynamics are seen as characteristic of late adolescence. The definitive separation–individuation processes of late adolescence are seen as a final death throe of childhood and a birth throe of adulthood. In these death throes, the adolescent can see objects as oblivious. The late adolescent can resort to manic leaps to negotiate passages she feels unready for. Such leaps sometimes take the form of physical symptoms, sometimes in crisis form, as late adolescents separate more definitively than in earlier developmental periods.     

Adolescents in mind

Adolescents in serious emotional difficulty are often unwilling to accept help from formal and statutory services. However, they remain a great worry to their parents, families and society as a whole. In this paper, I present the development of a model where the parents of adolescents are seen without the adolescent being referred. The adolescents themselves are occasionally present to help in the thinking about what they need from their parents and what they find unhelpful. They are not there to be engaged in therapy. Parents are encouraged to restore their authority and develop their role as parents appropriate to the new demands and needs of adolescents, who are held in mind by the therapist and are engaged indirectly through the work with their parents.     

Time and again: Intermittent Brief Dynamic Therapy

Abstract

The author notes that in many of the settings in which Brief Therapy takes place that a client may return after the ending for a further series of sessions. Time-limited therapy has placed an emphasis upon the termination phase of the therapy and linked this to the process of individuation and separation. Such an approach, as articulated by Mann (1973 Mann, J. 1973. Time-limited psychotherapy, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.  [Google Scholar]), which draws conceptually from the work of Winnicott (1965 Winnicott, D. W. 1965. The maturational processes and the facilitating environment, London: Hogarth Press.  [Google Scholar]) and the notion that the infant achieves unit status from the original undifferentiated merger with the mother, is not easily compatible with Intermittent Brief Dynamic Therapy. The work of attachment theorists and Stern (1985 Stern, D. N. 1985. The interpersonal world of the infant, New York: Basic Books.  [Google Scholar]) provide an alternative basis upon which to conceive of the development of the infant. While emphasizing the importance of attending to affects at points of separation and ending, as is evidenced in the work of Della Selva (2004 Della, Selva P. C. 2004. Intensive short-term dynamic psychotherapy, London: Karnac.  [Google Scholar]), such a framework is more readily compatible with the development of Intermittent Therapy, and with the realities of the settings in which much brief work takes place. The author also comments upon the flexibility inherent in Winnicott's own practice of brief consultations, and the implications of this for the development of Intermittent Brief Dynamic Therapy. The paper includes a case study that illustrates this debate and which provides evidence for the therapeutic potency of a form of Brief Dynamic Intermittent Therapy where a dynamic focus maintains a structuring pattern to the narrative over a sequence of several periods of Brief Therapy, spread over a number of years.