Development I: Birth to 5 Years

Adult Psychoanalytic Training (APT)
2020-21, 1st Trimester — Fridays, 1:45-3:15pm
Judy K. Eekhoff, PhD
Kelly Lippman, LMHC

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September 25, 2020 — Ideas about Developmental Progression – Stages

[36 pages]

Mahler’s conceptualization of the separation-individuation process, particularly her ideas about rapprochement, development in symbolic representation, rupture and repair, affective attunement and libidinal object constancy are foundational and continue to have relevance today.  We will explore Mahler’s four subphases of separation-individuation and contemporary perspectives that integrate Mahler’s concepts with attachment theory.

Mahler, M.S. (1972). Rapprochement Subphase of the Separation-Individuation Process. Psychoanal Q., 41:487-506.

Bergman, A. Harpaz-Rotem, I. (2004). Revisiting Rapprochement in the Light of Contemporary Developmental Theories. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 52(2):555-570.

Optional Reading

Gergely, G. (2000). Reapproaching Mahler: New Perspectives on Normal Autism, Symbiosis, Splitting and Libidinal Object Constancy from Cognitive Developmental Theory. J. Amer. Psychoanal. Assn., 48(4):1197-1228.

Furman, R.A. Furman, E. (1984). Intermittent Decathexis—A Type of Parental Dysfunction. Int. J. Psycho-Anal., 65:423-433.

Seligman, S. (2016). Disorders of Temporality and The Subjective Experience of Time: Unresponsive Objects and the Vacuity of the Future. Psychoanal. Dial., 26(2):110-128.