Mahler and Identity Formation

Mahler (1968) is best known for her theory on how the infant first establishes a sense of identity - how the "I" is initially formulated. Her early research was conducted with symbiotic psychotic children and later extended to normal human development. Mahler and colleagues postulated that the universal human condition originates in a symbiotic state, followed by a separation-individuation process in normal development. Four subphases were later discerned in the separation-individuation phase of development, thought to occur between the second half of the first year and in the second year of infant life. (Mahler, Pine, and Bergman, 1975).

Mahler (1968) identifies a stage of absolute primary narcissism, a state of undifferentiation between "I" and "not-I," or of fusion with the mother, from which the infant first begins to differentiate the quality of experience. At some point the child reaches a symbiotic stage of mother-child dual unity, during which she oscillates between her mother as separate and as not separate. A series of gratification-frustration sequences promote structuralization of the ego, ideally gradually and from an optimal symbiotic state. In the course of development, a unified object representation becomes demarcated from a unified self representation, establishing object constancy. Yet a dialectic between self

42 Creativity, Spirituality, and Mental Health

and other remains, evidenced in the continual need to establish connection and separateness throughout life.

Mahler (1968) states: "Consciousness of self and absorption without awareness of self are the two polarities with which we move, with varying ease and with varying degrees of alternation or simultaneity" (p. 223). Her work on identity formation is helpful in understanding the healing potential of creative expression. Creative expression, I believe, is a vehicle for the dialectic between self and other outlined by Mahler, for negotiating the need for both connection and separateness. In many ways, the search for the sacred, I suggest, is about the dialectic between finding self and losing self in the whole.