The skin as a means of communicating the difficulties of separation—individuation in toddlerhood

Abstract

Because the skin is a fundamentally important means of communication between mother and child, skin problems disturb this relationship and can lead to a disturbance in the concepts of the self linked to narcissistic difficulties and to an acute sensitivity to object relationships. In psychoanalytic terms, the ego or psychic skin is a metaphor for the biological skin and the psychic skin depends on the bodily. skin. This paper considers the metaphorical link between the biological skin and the ego, by drawing on weekly observations, made over a ten-month period, of a male toddler who suffered from infantile eczema. His skin problems seem to reflect his struggle during the separation-individuation process of toddlerhood. His eczema is shown to be a metaphor for his apparent feeling of inconsistent containment, his difficulties in developing a positive concept of the self that has ego strength, and his difficulty in expressing aggression safely.