Margaret Schönberger Mahler (May 10, 1897 in
Ödenburg,
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary, often referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire,, the Dual Monarchy, or Austria, was a constitutional monarchy and great power in Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. It was formed with the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of ...
; October 2, 1985 in New York) was an
Austrian-American
psychiatrist,
psychoanalyst, and
pediatrician. She did pioneering work in the field of infant and young child research. On the basis of empirical studies, she developed a development model that became particularly influential in
psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
and
Object relations theory. Mahler developed the ''separation–individuation theory of child development''.
Biography
Born Margaret Schönberger on May 10, 1897, into a
jewish
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
family in
Ödenburg, a small town near
Vienna
en, Viennese
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to Gustav Schönberger, an Austrian physician and president of the Jewish community, one of the notables of Ödenburg, and Eugenia Schönberger, née Wiener. She and a younger sister had a difficult childhood as a result of their parents' troubled marriage. Margaret's father, however, encouraged her to excel in mathematics and other sciences. After completing the
Höhere Mädchenschule, she attended Vaci Utcai Gimnazium in
Budapest
Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...
, even though it was unusual at the time for a woman to continue formal education. Budapest was of great influence on her life and career.
[Mahler at webster.edu](_blank)
She met the influential Hungarian psychoanalyst
Sándor Ferenczi, became fascinated by the concept of the
unconscious
Unconscious may refer to:
Physiology
* Unconsciousness, the lack of consciousness or responsiveness to people and other environmental stimuli
Psychology
* Unconscious mind, the mind operating well outside the attention of the conscious mind a ...
, and was encouraged to read
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts ...
.
[Coates, ''John Bowlby and Margaret S. Mahler: Their lives and theories'', pp. 571–587. Also in J Am Psychoanal Assoc. 2004 Spring;52(2):571-601]
DOI: 10.1177/00030651040520020601
/ref>
In September 1916, she began Art History studies at the University of Budapest, but in January 1917 switched to the Medical School. Three semesters later she began medical training at the University of Munich
Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and Ha ...
, but was forced to leave because of Antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
. In spring 1920 she transferred to the University of Jena
Jena () is a German city and the second largest city in Thuringia. Together with the nearby cities of Erfurt and Weimar, it forms the central metropolitan area of Thuringia with approximately 500,000 inhabitants, while the city itself has a po ...
and it was there that she began to realize how important play
Play most commonly refers to:
* Play (activity), an activity done for enjoyment
* Play (theatre), a work of drama
Play may refer also to:
Computers and technology
* Google Play, a digital content service
* Play Framework, a Java framework
* P ...
and love
Love encompasses a range of strong and positive emotional and mental states, from the most sublime virtue or good habit, the deepest interpersonal affection, to the simplest pleasure. An example of this range of meanings is that the love o ...
were for infants in order for them to grow up mentally and physically healthy. After graduating '' cum laude'' in 1922, she left for Vienna
en, Viennese
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, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
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, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
in order to get her license to practice medicine. There she turned from pediatrics to psychiatry
Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...
and, in 1926, started her training analysis
Analysis ( : analyses) is the process of breaking a complex topic or substance into smaller parts in order to gain a better understanding of it. The technique has been applied in the study of mathematics and logic since before Aristotle (3 ...
with Helene Deutsch
Helene Deutsch (née Rosenbach; 9 October 1884 – 29 March 1982) was a Polish American psychoanalyst and colleague of Sigmund Freud. She founded the Vienna Psychoanalytic Institute. In 1935, she immigrated to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where sh ...
. Seven years later, she was accepted as an analyst. Working with children became her passion. She loved the way the children gave her their attention and showed their joy in cooperating with her.
In 1936 she married Paul Mahler. Following the Nazis
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...
' rise to power, the couple moved to Britain
Britain most often refers to:
* The United Kingdom, a sovereign state in Europe comprising the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands
* Great Britain, the largest island in the United King ...
and then, in 1938, to the United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
. After receiving a New York medical license, Margaret Mahler set up private practice in a basement and began to rebuild her clientele. In 1939 she met Benjamin Spock
Benjamin McLane Spock (May 2, 1903 – March 15, 1998) was an American pediatrician and left-wing political activist whose book '' Baby and Child Care'' (1946) is one of the best-selling books of the twentieth century, selling 500,000 copies ...
and, after giving a child analysis seminar in 1940, she became senior teacher of child analysis. She joined the Institute of Human Development, the Educational Institute and the New York Psychoanalytic Society
The New York Psychoanalytic Society and Institute — founded in 1911 by Dr. Abraham A. Brill — is the oldest psychoanalytic organization in the United States.
The charter members were: Louis Edward Bisch, Brill, Horace Westlake Frink, Fre ...
. In 1948 she worked on clinical studies on Benign and Malignant Cases of Childhood Psychosis
Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
.
Barnard College
Barnard College of Columbia University is a private women's liberal arts college in the borough of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1889 by a group of women led by young student activist Annie Nathan Meyer, who petitioned Columbia ...
, at its 1980 commencement ceremonies, awarded her its highest honor, the Barnard Medal of Distinction.
Schönberger Mahler died on October 2, 1985.
Work
Margaret Mahler worked as a psychoanalyst with young disturbed children.
In 1950 she and Manuel Furer founded the Masters Children's Centre in Manhattan (it was connected with Mount Sinai hospital). There she developed the Tripartite Treatment Model, in which the mother participated in the treatment of the child.[ Mahler initiated a more constructive exploration of severe disturbances in childhood and emphasized the importance of the environment on the child. She was especially interested in mother-infant duality and carefully documented the impact of early separations of children from their mothers. This documentation of separation-]individuation
The principle of individuation, or ', describes the manner in which a thing is identified as distinct from other things.
The concept appears in numerous fields and is encountered in works of Leibniz, Carl Gustav Jung, Gunther Anders, Gilbert Sim ...
was her most important contribution to the development of psychoanalysis.
Separation-individuation can be viewed as the psychological birth of an infant, which occurs over a period of time when the child separates from the mother and begins to individuate.
Mahler shed light on the normal and abnormal features of the developmental ego psychology. She worked with psychotic
Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior t ...
children, while psychosis
Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
hadn't been covered in the psychoanalytic
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
treatment yet.[Mitchell, ''Freud and Beyond'', pp. 43, 46-47]
Symbiotic child psychosis
Psychosis is a condition of the mind that results in difficulties determining what is real and what is not real. Symptoms may include delusions and hallucinations, among other features. Additional symptoms are incoherent speech and behavior ...
struck her. The symptomatology she saw as a derailment of the normal processes whereby self-representations (the representation of one's self) and object-representations (the representation of a familiar person) become distinct.[ Her most important work is ''The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant: Symbiosis and Individuation'', written in 1975 with Fred Pine and Anni Bergman.
]
Separation–individuation theory of child development
In Mahler's theory, child development
Child development involves the Human development (biology), biological, developmental psychology, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the conclusion of adolescence. Childhood is divided into 3 stages o ...
takes place in phases, each with several sub phases:
*Normal autistic phase – First few weeks of life. The infant is detached and self-absorbed. Spends most of his/her time sleeping. Mahler later abandoned this phase, based on new findings from her infant research.[ She believed it to be non-existent. The phase still appears in many books on her theories.
*Normal symbiotic phase – Lasts until about 5 months of age. The child is now aware of his/her mother but there is not a sense of individuality. The infant and the mother are one, and there is a barrier between them and the rest of the world.
*Separation–individuation phase – The arrival of this phase marks the end of the Normal symbiotic phase. Separation refers to the development of limits, the differentiation between the infant and the mother, whereas individuation refers to the development of the infant's ego, sense of identity, and cognitive abilities. Mahler explains how a child with the age of a few months breaks out of an "autistic shell" into the world with human connections. This process, labeled separation–individuation, is divided into subphases, each with its own onset, outcomes and risks. The following subphases proceed in this order but overlap considerably.
**Hatching – first months. The infant ceases to be ignorant of the differentiation between him/her and the mother. "Rupture of the shell". Increased alertness and interest for the outside world. Using the mother as a point of orientation.
**Practicing – from 9 to about 16 months. Brought about by the infant's ability to crawl and then walk freely, the infant begins to explore actively and becomes more distant from the mother. The child experiences himself still as one with his mother.
**Rapprochement – 15–24 months. In this subphase, the infant once again becomes close to the mother. The child realizes that his physical mobility demonstrates psychic separateness from his mother. The toddler may become tentative, wanting his mother to be in sight so that, through eye contact and action, he can explore his world. The risk is that the mother will misread this need and respond with impatience or unavailability. This can lead to an anxious fear of abandonment in the toddler. A basic 'mood predisposition' may be established at this point. Rapprochement is divided into a few subphases:
***Beginning – Motivated by a desire to share discoveries with the mother.
***Crisis – Between staying with the mother, being emotionally close and being more independent and exploring.
***Solution – Individual solutions are enabled by the development of language and the superego.
Disruptions in the fundamental process of separation–individuation can result in a disturbance in the ability to maintain a reliable sense of individual identity in adulthood.][
]
Object constancy
Object constancy, similar to Jean Piaget
Jean William Fritz Piaget (, , ; 9 August 1896 – 16 September 1980) was a Swiss psychologist known for his work on child development. Piaget's theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemolo ...
's object permanence
Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be sensed. This is a fundamental concept studied in the field of developmental psychology, the subfield of psychology that addresses the development of ...
, describes the phase when the child understands that the mother has a separate identity and is truly a separate individual. This leads to the formation of ''internalization
Internalization ( or internalisation) is the process of making something internal, with more specific meanings in various fields. It is the opposite of externalization.
Psychology and sociology
In psychology, internalization is the outcome of ...
'', which is the internal representation that the child has formed of the mother. This Internalization is what provides the child with an image that helps supply them with an unconscious level of guiding support and comfort from their mothers. Deficiencies in positive Internalization could possibly lead to a sense of insecurity and low self-esteem issues in adulthood.[Engler, B. (2006). ''Psychoanalysis. Personality Theories'', pp. 176–179.]
Selected works
*''On human symbiosis and the vicissitudes of individuation'', 1969.
*''The psychological birth of the human infant : symbiosis and individuation'', 1975.
*''Infantile psychosis and early contributions''
*''Rapprochement - critical subphase, separation - individuation''
*''Separation - individuation''
Weblinks
*
''Mahler Margaret, geb. Schönberger''
Uni Vienna
www.Psychoanalytikerinnen.de
See also
* Autism
* Jointness (psychodynamics)
Jointness is a termR. Solan 1991 in psychoanalysis and psychodynamic theory, describing a new look at normal object relation that takes place from the beginning of life. Till nowadays symbiosis (propounded by Margaret Mahler 1968, 1975) is the c ...
* Psychoanalysis
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might b ...
* Refrigerator mother theory
The Refrigerator mother theory, also known as Bettelheim's theory of autism, is a controversial psychological theory that the cause of autism is a lack of maternal (figurative) warmth. Evidence against the refrigerator mother theory began in t ...
Notes
References
*Ben-Aaron, Miriam, and Ruth Beloff. "Mahler, Margaret." Encyclopaedia Judaica, edited by Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed., vol. 13, Macmillan Reference USA, 2007, p. 361. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
Coates, S.W., ''John Bowlby and Margaret S. Mahler: Their lives and theories'' (2004)
Also in J Am Psychoanal Assoc. 2004 Spring;52(2):571-601
DOI: 10.1177/00030651040520020601
*Mitchell, S.A., and Black, M.J. (1995). ''Freud and Beyond''. New York: Basic Books.
*''Notes on the development of basic moods: the depressive affect. In Drives, Affects, Behavior'', vol. 2, ed Max Schur, NY: International Universities Press, pp. 161–169.
*Mahler, S. and Pine, M.M. and F., Bergman, A. (1973). ''The Psychological Birth of the Human Infant'', New York: Basic Books.
*''Thoughts about development and individuation. Psychoanalytic Study of the Child'', 1963.
*Mazet, Philippe. "Mahler-Schönberger, Margaret (1897-1985)." International Dictionary of Psychoanalysis, edited by Alain de Mijolla, vol. 2, Macmillan Reference USA, 2005, pp. 1001-1003. Gale Virtual Reference Library.
External links
* Margaret S. Mahler papers (MS 1138). Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library
Margaret Mahler Psychiatric Research Foundation
{{DEFAULTSORT:Mahler, Margaret Schoenberger
1897 births
1985 deaths
People from Sopron
Austrian Jews
Austrian scientists
Jewish American scientists
Physicians from New York City
Austrian women psychiatrists
Austrian psychiatrists
Jewish psychiatrists
Austrian emigrants to the United States
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
Holocaust survivors
Austrian psychoanalysts
Jewish psychoanalysts
American pediatricians
Analysands of Helene Deutsch
Analysands of August Aichhorn
Women psychiatrists
Jewish women scientists
20th-century American Jews