Differentiation, object relation, and “microprocesses” of identification through the mother–infant bodily relationship

The mother–infant relationship is viewed through the lens of their primarily-bodily interaction. A conceptually organizing developmental line is used to describe movement from global/undifferentiated states, through greater differentiation, and on to integration of the differentiated units. Aspects of Mahler's work, and the current author's revisions and elaborations of that work, are drawn upon to describe early merger experiences (the “global/undifferentiated” state) for the infant, this state being present notwithstanding the simultaneous presence of significant indicators of differentiation. Bodily bases for the progressively more complete move into a differentiated awareness of self-other boundaries are also described. And finally, by drawing on ideas from both attachment theory and object relations theory, the development of an “integration” of the mother/infant pair–an “integration” through the relationship between them–is described. In this latter discussion, primary attention is given to the role of identification (of infant with mother) as a process that binds the two together. In this most fully developed section of the paper, three “microprocesses” of identification are offered as taking place through: (1) the mother's organizing or disorganizing overlay upon the infant's functioning, (2) the mother's “magnification” of unconsciously selected specific conflictual processes, and (3) “appeal” processes in the child (the “magnetism” of unsettled inner states) that selectively adopt offerings from the surround to be internalized.