Separation-Individuation, Margaret Mahler's Model

The process of separation and individuation was researched, illustrated, and presented as a psychological theory by Margaret Mahler. Mahler's work constitutes a major developmental theory in modern clinical psychology, despite the fact that its empirical base is limited. The theory describes and explains the development of our inner world as we progress from infancy, stage by stage, interteracting with our human environment, with critical emphasis placed on childhood and adolescence (Mahler, 1963; Mahler, Pine, & Bergman, 1975).

Mahler differentiated between biological and psychological birth. In her view, psychological birth is a process occurring during the baby's first 3 years. Its successful climax results in the achievement of separation and individuation. In order to achieve this, the child must reach separate functioning in the presence and together with the mother's emotional availability (Mahler, 1963). This developmental process depends on the child's inner drive to separate as well as on the mother's support. When both are present, the child's ego functions strengthen. This eventually enables the child to become a person with a sense of individuality in his or her own eyes, as well as in the eyes of others.

In each stage in the first 3 years, developmental processes contribute vastly to the person's psychological growth, with each stage considered an essential basis for the next (Mahler, 1963). Although the major developments occur during the first 3 years, Mahler referred to individuation as a lifelong process, being effected by a variety of life cycle events.

Mahler developed beyond all other psychoanalytic theories the idea of the ego's adaptability to reality as a central concept. She emphasized development primarily in terms of the ego's mediating capacity between the child's inborn needs and the means to satisfy them, which reside in the external reality. Her major contribution was her focus on the interrelational dimension. The following are some of her fundamental assumptions:

• The drive to separate is inborn and promotes adjustment.
• This adjustment depends on the quality of early interpersonal relationships.
• The highest level of ego adjustment is its ability to form internal representations of both the self and the other as mutually independent entities. This independence will be manifested in human interaction.

Mahler identified six developmental stages from birth to age 3, during which infants move from the initial stage of total symbiosis with the mother toward recognizing their own drives as separate from hers.