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Psych - e - News
An Online Magazine from the
New York State Psychological Association
Division of Psychoanalysis
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Parents and Children: The Separation Issue
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Our Issue Editors, Roanne Barnett, Ph.D., and Janet Tintner, Psy.D.,
bring us a close examination of a crucial phase of childhood, the
separation process. In this universal human experience children learn
to move into the world emotionally and socially on their own, apart
from their parents, who serve as a secure base to whom the children
constantly return for reassurance and security. In ordinary life this
can be the source of both tension and joy.
Our first article shows us a mother and young infant developing
their own pattern of coming together and moving apart, and also
introduces us to a new body of psychological research on infant
development. The second article presents a real example of a little
girl struggling with separation and shows us what parents can do to
help. And our last article shines a light on an ordinary
childhood event, playdates, to reveal how much psychological learning
goes on with them.
We hope this is useful to all parents, and even to any
adult readers wondering about their own sense of relationship and
safety in the world.
Susan B Parlow, Ph.D.
Editor-in-Chief
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Separation: The Early Months
He
was strapped into an infant seat. Sometimes he smiled, glistening with
drool. Other times he would whimper or kick his feet. He gurgled and
babbled, made faces, and shifted his gaze. He was at turns excited, calm,
and bored. He didn't know we were watching him. She knew though. And she
worked at being entertaining and exciting to her baby, though sometimes
we could see her suddenly shifting, slipping into boredom, too. Then she
would rev herself up again, wooing her guy with her face, her voice, her
hands shaking his little limbs.
He
didn't always want to be wooed. Sometimes he'd turn his head to his side,
as if to turn a deaf ear, particularly when she loomed in on his whole
body. With his "rejection" she would woo harder by tickling
him, whereupon he'd stiffen back against his seat, as if to escape. This
would prompt her to call his name and pull on him, determined, it seemed,
that he climb onto her rollercoaster. Eventually he would just shut down
completely, his head lolling to the side, his eyes closed. She would sit
back in her seat looking deflated. This encounter typified their four-
and six-month-old play episodes.
At
nine months, when he was able to move about on his own, the baby crawled
around scouting out the toys while the mother sat on the floor looking
characteristically bored. Suddenly she'd scoop him up with a big
whoop and cuddle and tickle him. He'd usually laugh, then wriggle his way
out from under her and crawl off for more exploring, apparently ignoring
his mother. However, when she left the room for a brief separation he
dropped the toys and scooted to the door, banging and crying until she
returned. He was unable to sustain exploring his world on his own for
even a few minutes. A brief cuddle on mom's return restored his emerging
independence and energy, and he returned to playing by himself
"alone" as his mother looked on.
In
this example, a competent mother is doing her best to follow the
researchers' instructions to "play" with her baby. Sometimes
she succeeds. He giggles and coos. But she also wears out both the baby
and herself. She does not recognize or maybe needs to ignore the
cues in the baby's own interests and feelings, apparent in his babbling
and body language. Perhaps it makes her too anxious to feel separate from
her baby; perhaps she can only engage with the baby on her own terms,
which she defines as one of them entertaining the other. If the baby
wants to explore, to expand his horizons, he has to leave the mother,
which she cannot tolerate for very long. But neither can he enjoy his
separateness without the mother in the background, even if she says
nothing, does nothing to augment his curiosity, his venturing out to
explore and conquer the world. She doesn't even seem to enjoy observing
his curiosity and delight, unless it's directly with her and intensely
exciting, and physical.
What
can we learn from this mother and baby? How can they inform our
understandings today of children and even adults? Over the past
sixty years, psychologist and psychoanalyst researchers have been
videotaping and closely watching mother-infant pairs from birth to three
years and longer. This highly detailed study has revealed the intricacies
of how, very early in life, the foundations of one's sense of self, and
one's personal emotional and social patterns, are created through
ordinary daily interactions with young infants. The rhythms, tempos,
matches and mismatches of our mother and little boy lay down his enduring
foundation for relationship.
I
think here of adult individuals and couples who come in for analytic
therapy with related difficulties. In my clinical work with grownups, we
address these same kinds of wordless experiences, accessed through
feeling and memory, preference and attention, that forge the stuff of
attachment, security, and social style, before language can render them
accessible to conscious awareness. Infant research illuminates the
invisible layers of all relationship that is relevant throughout life,
and may need to be reworked if trouble arises.
The
constant flow of coming together and being apart are practically
imperceptible in their ordinariness. Yet they form a foundation of
personality and relationship within and beyond the family. Follow-up
research over decades reveals how separation and reunion are a
fundamental timeless process in daily life across cultures, so ingrained
that we do not even notice how the experience permeates how we feel about
ourselves and how we relate to significant others. A heightened awareness
of this aspect of human social relatedness can help each of us to tune
into one another and prevent or augment the natural anxiety or
self-confidence caused by our daily comings and goings, near and far,
short or long.
Roanne
Barnett, Ph.D.
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Separation Anxiety and Parents
Ashley
is a shy, soft-spoken eight-year-old girl. She was a withdrawn and
teary kindergardener, but she overcame this and adapted well in the early
grades. Yet one day, her mother was late in picking her up, and
since then Ashley has been clinging to her mother at the school entrance,
and is upset and tearful by the end of the school day. Almost everyone
can recall some moment like this in life, when the absence of an
important person was intensely upsetting and painful. Although Ashley had
gotten over this once at this time she could not get emotionally balanced
again, and her parents brought her to see me.
In
my psychology practice, I'm often consulted about children with problems
like Ashley's-children in whom ordinarily normal anxiety over someone's
absence has developed into a more severe problem that clinicians call
'separation anxiety'. Forming strong relationships is a vital core to
becoming human, built into our very genetic endowment through evolution,
and almost all infants pass through a phase of anxiety at being separated
from their key relationship. The good news is that parents can exercise
control over its course by helping their child deal with the
painful feelings about parent absence.
Psychologically, around age seven months children begin to understand
that people exist separate from themselves - meaning they begin to
realize that these key others on whom they depend can come and go as they
please, outside of the child's control. At the same time, the
child's memory develops to the point where they recognize the difference
between parents and strangers. This constitutes a big developmental step
- understanding how reality is constructed - but it's not an easy
lesson.
With
this acute new awareness, many infants are overwhelmed with distress when
separated from their own parents or caregivers, or when a stranger tries
to come too close. They cry or withdraw into silence and refuse to
interact at all. After all, the infant knows only
"now". He hasn't formed a concept of return, and has no
sense of time. He does not know that his mother will return; he
knows only that she can come and go as she pleases, he can't control her,
and she is not here NOW.
This
distress is painful for parents, but the infant's protests are part of
the healthy development of control over the vital emotions of
relationship. The infant is feeling his need for his caretaker, and
can now - with help - learn to tame those feelings. Normal stranger
anxiety and separation anxiety usually peak around twelve to eighteen
months and largely subside by about age three.
Problems
with Separation Anxiety
But
some children do not easily master this anxiety and feel continued
agitation over leaving parents and familiar settings, into their
elementary, middle and high school years. Panicky clinging in older
children-the kind of Separation Anxiety Disorder that becomes school
refusal or social isolation-makes them unhappy and interferes with their
learning . A child in this state is very resistant to being apart from
home and family. His distress is out of proportion to the
situation. The child might also express fears that something
terrible-a death or an illness, for example-might occur to a parent or to
herself. He may be fearful of sleeping alone or refuse to attend
school or participate in other activities.
Managing
Separation Problems
The
quality of the parental relationship does not create or prevent
separation anxiety in an infant. Feeling this anxiety is a normal stage
of human development. But the parent-child relationship plays a
central role in overcoming normal separation anxiety by helping the child
to develop a sense of security in the parent's absence.
Parents
who are responsive to their child's feelings foster secure
attachment-a sense that the child can rely on his parents to care for and
soothe him. This secure sense comforts him even when parents are not in
sight. Repeated experiences that the parent 'gets' what the child feels
are crucially helpful to the child and gives him or her the real
experience, again and again, that Mommy and Daddy are paying attention,
sees my need, and comes through for me. They will come back!
Verbal
reassurance and a soothing tone of voice are good parent tools for
managing anxiety in young children. Separation anxiety starts
before a child talks, but he will be very tuned into subtle parental
messages. Although the infant doesn't yet understand complex
language, parental reassurance using simple words, e.g., "Mommy goes
away; Mommy always comes back" does get through. The infant is
likely to respond to the soothing tone of voice and will incorporate
those words as he learns language. The words will eventually help
him to understand what is happening and to master his fears.
Explanations
and reassurances are even more important for older children. Naming
fears is the first step in mastering them. Children benefit from
learning that their feelings have names, and that their fears are usually
different from what really happens. They are safe; the parents are
safe; they will be reunited. Explanations also help him understand
time, and that things change over time. "Mommy is leaving NOW,
but Mommy will return LATER"-or, more concretely, "when it's
time for lunch, when it starts to get dark," etc. Because verbal
reassurances are so important, parents should resist the temptation to
slip away when the child is distracted without saying anything; and of
course, the parent should make sure to do what she said she would do.
With
care and preparation, most children overcome anxieties about
separation. For others, a therapist experienced in working with
childhood anxiety can help parents to help their children to master those
fears.
Ruth
Vogel, Ph.D.
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Parents and Playdates: A Step in the Separation Process
When
four and a half year old Anna enters my office she reminds me of a
Renaissance putti, those blond, curly-haired cherubs that one might see
in a Raphael painting. Her mother, Mrs. C, tells me why they have come to
see me. Recently, during a parents' day at Anna's preschool, Anna had to
hold onto her mother's hand at all times. All the other mothers and
fathers were standing on the outskirts of the classroom while their
children freely played and mingled, but Anna was so tied to her mother
she couldn't play. Anna's difficulty separating from her mother to
explore the world became the focus of the treatment.
In
our first meeting, Anna demonstrates her struggle. She clutches her
mother's body even as Mrs. C tries to sit in an office chair. Anna
eyes my toy cabinet and desperately tries to reach the toys several feet
away. She can't reach them because she cannot let go of her
mother. As I watch her in these moments, I can see
Anna's yearning and fear. Looking at Mrs. C, I can feel her ache
and frustration. As a parent I, too, have experienced the tension
that inevitably comes as we face some moment when our child is unhappy,
scared or lonely.
As
a mother, psychoanalyst and child psychotherapist for twenty-five years,
I know how much strength it takes for parents to bring their child to a
therapist. I have heard their many questions. Can their child
be helped? Will I blame them for their child's problem? How
can they talk to me about something so uncomfortable? Will I listen
and respect their efforts? Yet when treating a child, especially one
as young as Anna, parents are a key part of the process. Child
therapy usually involves direct play therapy with the child and a therapeutic
process in which parents must reflect and gain an understanding of how
they may have contributed, even inadvertently, to their child's dilemma,
and what they can learn that will contribute to a better outcome.
Such was the situation with Anna and her mother.
The
first step towards Anna learning to separate involved her coming to play
with me. After a number of sessions she relaxed enough to leave her
mother's side, crossing the room to reach the toys and
me. Gradually Anna began to have so much fun playing games with
me that she would at times forget that her mother was in the
room. Her excitement about our fun started to grow, and she brought
several stuffed animals from home to join our "pack" of animal
playmates in the office. In effect, I was her first playdate and these
were her first successful playdates.
The
next move was to set up playdates with children her age. I met with
Mrs. C to talk about calling up other parents to plan a playdate for the
children. As we spoke Mrs. C began to realize that playdates
weren't minor matters, but would help Anna learn to make friends and
could lay the groundwork for learning how to develop a social life.
It turned out that this was an area of difficulty for Mrs. C
herself. She confided her own reluctance to socialize outside
of the immediate family. Mrs. C hesitated to call other parents from
her own fear that they might reject her or Anna. Furthermore, she
felt guilty about her full time job and tried to compensate for weekday
absences by devoting herself to Anna the rest of the week. As she
and I spoke of these concerns, Mrs. C came to realize that her own fears
and guilt might be holding Anna back.
Mrs.
C used this important new awareness as a springboard to overcome her
anxiety and arranged for Anna's first playdate with Sarah, a
classmate. Immediately Anna made plans to show Sarah the very
stuffed animals that she had played with in my office. A cuddly
kitten and purple turtle began new lives in play between Anna and
Sarah. They facilitated Anna's transition from playdates with me to
playdates at home with a lively friend from school. Pretty soon,
Anna began to ask for playdates with other classmates, and Mrs. C became
creative in setting them up. She gathered boxes of felt markers and
multi-colored stickers. She organized outings to the park and to
Steve's ice cream parlor. Whenever Anna and a playmate argued, Mrs.
C learned skillfully to divert the children, or helped Anna share a toy
or compromise her position. At times, Mrs. C simply stepped back and
let Anna and her friend work it out together.
Watching
Anna's interactions with playmates, Mrs. C began to see her daughter in
new ways. A comfortable distance and healthy separation evolved
between mother and daughter as Mrs. C came to see in Anna a fuller and
more complex person. Anna's developing independence also grew as
she became more confident and able to take the initiative in her play
with me and with her new friends.
Playdates
look like a simple matter, but in fact they are occasions of growth and
change. On playdates children learn to interact with peers outside of the
family and learn how to develop friendships. They practice how to
share and resolve conflicts or differences of opinion. Children
have opportunities for fun and experiences of themselves in a multitude
of situations. Learning to relate to non-family individuals who may
be less tolerant and readily accepting of one's feelings or wishes is a
milestone in the life of every person. For parents, playdates offer
opportunities to see their children in new ways, discovering the
individual person who is yet their familiar child. When a child has
difficulty separating the importance of playdates stands out in stark
relief. While many parents will readily attest to the
value of playdates, it is easy to take them for granted and to overlook
their true influence and meaning in a child's growth.
Jacqueline Ferraro, D.M.H.
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About our Authors
Roanne Barnett, Ph.D. is a developmental and
clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst who began her private practice
after almost a decade of mother-infant research at The Payne Whitney
Clinic at New York Presbyterian Hospital. She practices
psychoanalysis, psychoanalytic psychotherapy, couples therapy, and EMDR
in her Manhattan office.
Jacqueline
Ferraro, D.M.H.
is a psychoanalyst and child and adolescent clinical psychologist.
She is teaching faculty, a supervisor and Director of Curriculum in the
Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy Training Program at the William Alanson
White Institute. She is Assistant Director of the Parent Center at
the William Alanson White Institute and in private practice in Manhattan
Ruth
S. Vogel, Ph.D.
is a psychologist in private practice in Manhattan, with specialties in
eating disorders and child and family therapy. She has also taught
at Temple University and Holy Family College, both in Philadelphia, and
at Temple University's campus in Tokyo.
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Susan B. Parlow, Ph.D., Editor in Chief
Nicholas Samstag, Ph.D.,
Executive
Editor
Roanne
Barnett, Ph.D. and Janet Tintner, Psy.D., Issue Editors
Roanne Barnett, Ph.D., Don Greif, Ph.D., Maureen
O"Reilly-Landry, Ph.D., Janet Tintner, Psy.D., Ruth Vogel,
Ph.D., Editorial Board
NYSPA,
Division of Psychoanalysis
With
special thanks to the Psychoanalytic Society of the Post Doctoral Program
in Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis at NYU, for initial funding.
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