Infantile neurosis is based
on early mother-child interactions. But there are also environmental
factors. And later does the child’s independent being also influence
the course of his/her crap.
Homeostatic equilibrium/symbiotic
relationship: mothers become biologically conditioned for the
role of caring for the child. The mother identifies with her infant,
but infant is too young to be identifying back at mother, since this
mechanism is too complex for a newborn. Unlike Anna Freud, Winnicott
claims that not objects, but needs (at first biological) that are being
satisfied or frustrated in the infant. Id is related to desire.
But need is much more fundamental than desires.
So, the mother’s soothing/lulling has a much more biological rhythm
regulation kind of effect of the child than objects and immediate internalizations.
Primary Maternal Preoccupation
Primary Maternal Preoccupation:
is a psychic state of the mother, beginning towards the end of the pregnancy,
and for a few weeks after the birth of the child. It is an organized
state which takes over the maternal personality. Mother withdraws from
everything and into the care of the new-born. Mother must enter and
eventually have this state. Some women have a hard time letting go of
other life commitments and block themselves from slipping into the
primary maternal preoccupation. This creates a distortion which
is hard to make up in later development. The boat will have been missed
on the time-specific the window of developmental opportunity. If primary
maternal preoccupation has not taken place, the child might go to become
the “autistic child” or the anti-social child who needs to learn
social identification, but later in life, it will not come naturally
to the child.
Infant’s state corresponding to the Primary Maternal Preoccupation
Primary Maternal Preoccupation:
helps the child in moving towards dealing with constitution and developmental
tendencies, and eventual ego development. Mother must be able to do
a good enough job at this task. Lack of Primary Maternal Preoccupation
interrupts the infant’s going on being and leads the infants to the
infant’s primitive anxiety over experienced annihilation, experienced
as death. For the infant, body needs become ego needs. Therefore, baby
assumes that mother is a person (versus a symbol of frustration or annihilation
of the self). Threats to the self or to subjective annihilation which
do not lead to annihilation but to recovery leads to infant’s
assumption of eventual recovery from the given situation (development
of ego + ego capacity) àthus coping mechanisms develop.
In order for Primary Maternal
Preoccupation to be identified, the parent has to have some sophistication,
which not all parents have. Some fear becoming to preoccupied with child
(i.e. becoming ill). Mother must have the capacity to identify with
the child. Good enough environmental provisions enable infant to begin
to exist, experience, build personal ego, ride instincts and to meet
difficulties in life. Without the initial good enough environment, self
can afford to die never develops. The feeling of real never develops.
With no chaos ongoing, there is a sense of futility to this person’s
life.. Difficulties in life and satisfaction could never be met. “False
self” overshadows the “true self”.
When a person still functions under the primitive defenses (i.e. false self/etc…), for the defense against annihilation, constitutional elements tend to be over-ridden. Constitutional factors show up more, and in a more adaptive way, in people that had the good enough Primary Maternal Preoccupation.
Winnicott claims that instincts can only be looked at through the lens of ego development:
In short, when the child’s constitution begins to emerge, if the experiences during the Primary Maternal Preoccupation taught the child that those are ok, and will be dealt with, then his constitution is deemed to be safe, despite having to adjust it to reality. If not, fear of annihilation occurs and a “false self” develops instead of the “real self”. (My remarks: kind of like the book “Catcher in the Rye”).