Separation-individuation Process Research Articles

Birkin's Struggle for Separateness in D. H. Lawrence's Women in Love

In Women in Love, Birkin's fulfilment in the relationship with Ursula Brangwen is presented as the result of a struggle to achieve the separation of his self from a devouring mother image. Lawrence's unconscious fantasies concerning the processes contributing to the achievement of this goal are expressed in his depiction of Birkin's strategies. We can distinguish three different strategies: the homoerotic escape, the direct attack on the devouring mother image and the anal erotic self-assurance. We will analyze the devouring mother concept as well as these strategies and check whether the data related in the novel can fit in psychoanalytic formulations of relations and fantasies concerning the separation-individuation process in infancy and early childhood. Finally, we wonder to what extent the eventual relationship of Birkin with Ursula, presented as a “fulfilment,” can be conceived as a mature sexual love relation.

Separation-Individuation, Social Support, and Adolescent Egocentrism

Data regarding imaginary audience (IA)and personal fable (PF) sensitivity, separation individuation concerns, and social support were collected from 100 young adolescents (a) to replicate and extend previous findings of relations among those variables, (b) to compare the predictive power of social support and separation-individuation concerns for IA and PI; and (c) to compare newly developed and traditional measures of IA and PE Overall, the results replicated those from previous studies and highlighted the importance of resolving measurement issues surrounding IA and PF: For example, the relative importance of social support as compared to separation-individuation processes differs depending on how IA is measured. The "new look" model seems to fit for a global, object-relational ideation view of I4, but not for the typical self-consciousness conceptualization of that construct. Directions for further research and suggestions for improving measures of IA and PF are discussed.

An analysis of 12-step programs for substance abusers from a developmental perspective

Twelve-step programs are increasingly recognized as important resources and treatment adjuncts for recovering alcohol and other drug abusers. It is therefore important that social workers and other clinicians understand the therapeutic value of these programs to the recovery process. This paper explores 12-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous in light of Margaret Mahler's conceptualization of the separation-individuation process that leads to object constancy and healthy object relations.

The Autonomous-Relational Self

Autonomy is often construed as separateness from others and is seen to result from a separation-individuation process. However, it is neither logically nor psychologically necessary for autonomy to imply separateness if the existence of the two different dimensions of agency and interpersonal distance are recognized. The two poles of the agency dimension are autonomy and heteronomy; those of the interpersonal distance dimension are separateness and relatedness. The two dimensions are confused when agency is pitted against relatedness. Different family interaction models are examined here in terms of childrearing patterns and the resultant types of (developing) selves. One of these, the autonomous-relational self, is suggested in this article to be a healthy synthesis of the two basic human needs for agency and relatedness. It tends to develop in the family model of emotional interdependence involving authoritative parenting. This family model and self constellation, which are supported by research evidence, involve a different set of theories than are traditionally found in psychology. This conceptualization synthesizes some apparently conflicting patterns of interpersonal relations and the self. It may serve as a corrective to the pervasive emphasis in psychology on individual autonomy at the cost of human relatedness.

Separation-individuation as a family transactional process in the transition to parenthood

This is a study of the impact of prebirth level of parental and marital individuation on the course of parent-infant and infant development during the first postnatal year. Support was found for the first hypothesis, namely, that a couple's composite individuation profile, taking into account the prebirth separation-individuation of the father and the mother, and their marriage, would be associated with positive infant development and parent-infant transactions related to separation-individuation and mutuality during the first postnatal year. A second hypothesis, that maternal individuation would most strongly predict infant and parent-infant development at 6 months, while paternal individuation would emerge at 1 year as a strong predictor, was not supported. It was found instead that prebirth maternal and paternal individuation were equally strong predictors at six months, while maternal individuation was the primary predictor at 12 months. Other findings on the direct and indirect associations between prebirth parental and marital individuation and postnatal parent-infant transactions suggest that early separation-individuation processes result from a complex configuration of triadic mother-father-infant transactions.

Cognitive ego psychology and the psychotherapy of learning disorders

The single most common referral problem in middle childhood and adolescence is academic underachievement and learning failure. Yet, the term “learning disorder” lacks specificity as a diagnostic entity and offers no guidelines for psychotherapy. An appreciation of the developmental processes by which the undifferentiated, unstructured, self-less and objectless newborn becomes a more fully developed, self-sufficient individual, capable of adaptive functioning and formal academic learning is encompassed in contemporary psychoanalytic conceptions of the separation-individuation process. This theory provides an organizing, theoretical base for diagnosis and treatment of learning disorders. Based on these conceptions, we discuss therapeutic techniques which are appropriate to the level of developmental arrest at each of the phases of the separation-individuation process.

Factor analytic structure and stability of the separation-individuation test of adolescence.

The present study was undertaken to examine internal structural properties of the Separation-Individuation Test Adolescence (SITA; Levine, Green, & Millon, 1986). In 1990, 131 late adolescent undergraduate university students received the SITA; 2 years later, 79 of these same subjects were reassessed. Principal components analyses were conducted for the 1990 and 1992 samples, and internal consistency reliabilities (Cronbach's alpha) were calculated for each subscale. The internal structural properties converged moderately to strongly for the following scales: Practicing Mirroring, Engulfment Anxiety, Dependency Denial, Nurturance Seeking, and Teacher Enmeshment. These findings parallel those of Levine (in press). The developmental impact of the late adolescent separation-individuation process may explain in part some different clusterings of scale items over time.

Sex-role identity and separation-individuation pathology

Abstract The Mahlerian theory of childhood psychological development suggests that the same sex parenting of girls in the mother-child dyad predisposes women to experience specific difficulties in the separation-individuation (S-I) process (Mahler, Pine & Bergman, 1975). Pathological states in adulthood have been attributed to these S-I disturbances (Pine 1979; Kernberg 1980). However, this theory has never been empirically tested. In this study 53 subjects were assessed for adult manifestation of disturbance in the separation-individuation process using a self-report questionnaire (Separation-Individuation Inventory: Christenson & Wilson, 1985), In contrast to previous theoretical work, women showed significantly lower levels of disturbance in the separation-individuation process than did men. Assessment of sex-role identity (Bem Sex Role Inventory: Bem, 1981) showed no significant difference between overall sex-role identity of the male and female subjects. Individuals lacking any clear sex-role identit...

The era of separation‐individuation

I refer in my title to an era rather than a phase of separation-individuation because my focus is only secondarily on that phase in the life of the developing child. My primary focus will be on the era in the growth of psychoanalytic developmental theory that saw the coming to fruition of Mahler's ideas on what she referred to as symbiosis and the separation-individuation process.

男子大学生における同一性形成と対人的関係性

This study aimed at examining the relationship between identity status and interpersonal relations in late adolescence; it also considered the various types of identity formation psycho-dynamically from a viewpoint of separation-individuation process. The identity status in this study was based upon Marcia's popular concepts, and additioned to Kato's intermediate concepts. The interpersonal relatedness covered both the “approach” and “avoidance” dimensions of relatedness; that is,“dependent relatedness”,“intimate relatedness” and “negativity to relatedness”, in conscious relatedness materials by a self-report as well as in projective ones by Thematic Apperception Test. The study was administered to 157 male university students. As a result, each status had a distinctive interpersonal style; especially two intermediate status showed characteristic identity formations. Diffusion-Moratorium intermediate was distinguished by avoidance or unvoluntary commitment to closely interpersonal relationship as well as to a task of individuation. Achievement-Foreclosure intermediate was characteritic in its identity style depending on its belonging to concerned relationship or groups. The identity styles of the above mentioned types were suggested to prove closely relations to Japanese culture and interpersonal styles.

Listening and Meaning in the Pyschotherapy of Borderlines

Current conceptualizations about the borderline condition, derived from object relations theory and self psychology, point to an arrest in the separation-individuation phase of development as the source of the central emotional and cognitive dysfunctions of borderline patients. Consequently, several lines of development are truncated at the point, around age two, at which the separation-individuation process has been arrested. Some of the implications of this developmental failure are explained, with particular attention to deficits relating to communications between patient and therapist. Borderline transferences manifest issues similar to parent-child interactions in the practicing and rapprochement subphases of the separation-individuation process. Borderline patients attend to messages in the transference related to certain key issues around which they must protect themselves, namely, abandonment by the therapist, judgments about the self, the therapist's holding function, and the therapist's narcissi...

The Influence of Gender Identity on Separation Related Depressive Phenomena in College Men and Women

The chapter examines the effects of gender identity formation on the depressive configurations of men and women. It is proposed that the separation-individuation processes in males and females differ significantly and, in conjection with gender identity development, contribute to dramatic differences in males' and females' orientations toward relatedness, autonomy, separation, and their internal and external object worlds. Clinical vignettes are included as a means of illustrating the contrasting manifestations of man's and women's struggles with separation-individuation.

Journey toward Integration: The Use of Collages to Assess the Separation and Individuation Process of an Adult Identical Twin

AbstractIn this paper, a single case study using art therapy to facilitate the separation-individuation process of an adult identical twin is presented. The client teas self-referred to a university counseling center. After initial crisis intervention sessions, the problems of dependency and identity were addressed through art therapy. The uniqueness of this study rests with its innnovative measurement tool, an inner circles collage which allowed the therapist to chart the client's intrapsychic move toward separation from her identical twin. The client used collages as a means of discovering differences between herself and her twin sister and to identify her own separate and unique sense of self.

Psychotherapy Supervision and the Separation-Individuation Process

Separation and individuation issues often play an important role in the psychotherapy supervision process, with developing therapy trainees attempting to separate from their supervisors and establish their own unique identities as psychotherapists. This paper examines the separation-individuation process in psychotherapy supervision, focusing specifically on four types of autonomy/dependency issues-functional, attitudinal, emotional, and conflictual-that can assert themselves during the supervisory experience. These four types of issues are defined and described, and case examples illustrating their effects in supervision are presented.

Spatial patterns associated with the separation-individuation process in adult long-term psychodynamic movement therapy groups

Spatial patterns associated with the separation-individuation process in adult long-term psychodynamic movement therapy groups

Object relations and addiction: The role of ?transmuting externalizations?

Addiction is viewed as resulting from a failure in the separation-individuation process. Due to lack of reliable selfobjects and failure to make transmuting internalizations, the addict remains dependent upon “transmuting externalizations” in an attempt to incorporate soothing objects into the self. As comfort provided by transmuting externalizations cannot be internalized into the self, the process inevitably fails. Treatment of addiction is thus conceived here as a multimodal strategy to help addicts complete separation-individuation and make transmuting internalizations of the soothing and realistic capacities of the therapist and peer group members.

The place of ego building work in psychotherapy with children

Ego building is essentially a name given to a variety of interventions used to support an ego hampered by regression or deviation. The term has its roots in the concept of ego support but evolved specifically as a technical term in contemporary ego psychology closely connected with the developmental theory of separation individuation. Using four vignettes of psychotherapy work with children all of whom suffered from unresolved conflicts and developmental interferences from the separation-individuation process, an attempt is made to illustrate the technical place of ego building in psychotherapy with children. It is suggested that the use of ego building, particularly verbalizing adaptive aims facilitates an alliance, supports a safety feeling and positive self-esteem. This contributes to providing a treatment experience that reduces over-stimulation and anxiety and frees the expression and understanding of aggression which ultimately promotes separation-individuation.

Preliminary Reliability and Validity of an Instrument Measuring Separation-Individuation Outcomes

The developmental sequence through which an infant moves from early neonatal life to an awareness of social reality and the achievement of separate identity was labeled in 1975 by Mahler, Pine, and Bergman the separation-individuation process. They have identified six developmental subphases-Autism, Symbiosis, Differentiation, Practicing, Rapprochement, and Libidinal Object Constancy-which are estimated by the Separation-Individuation Inventory recently developed and evaluated by Taylor and Bartolomucci. In the current study we have further evaluated the validity of the inventory, noting expected patterns of intercorrelations among subphases: correlations between adjacent phases were higher than correlations between more distant phases.

To stay or to return: Rapprochement processes in the migration of adolescents and young adults

The migration of adolescents and young adults is analyzed in terms of the separation-individuation process—an attempt at separation, reflecting conflictual feelings around autonomy and dependency needs. This paper focuses on the acute ambivalence typical of the rapprochement phase of personality development during childhood and applying this to understanding the adolescent and young adult during their migration experiences. The young immigrants to Israel are observed to alternate between physical approaching and then distancing in relation to both the new country (Israel) and the country of origin (the homeland). Four clinical examples of young persons are presented to illustrate the rapprochement process in some immigrants.

Guidelines for the Family Therapeutic Approach to Eating Disorders

After a brief historical overview of the literature on family therapy in eating disorders, the authors' own clinical experience is summarized in some practical guidelines: give the family therapist a central position within the team, engage the family and/or spouse as co-therapist, explore the message of the eating disorder on different levels, neutralize the symptoms outside of the family interaction, promote direct communication, facilitate the separation-individuation process, and be available for a long time. Finally some special issues are discussed: sexual and/or physical abuse in the family, broken-home situations and single-parent families, married and chronic patients.