Points on a Compass: Four Views on the Developmental Theories of Margaret Mahler and John Bowlby

Contemporary neurobiological research studies, using technology developed during “the decade of the brain,” reveal that emotional interactions during the early years of life have a definitive role in determining brain morphology. These studies confirm the observations of earlier analysts like August Aichhorn, D. W. Winnicott, John Bowlby, René Spitz, Anna Freud, and Margaret Mahler about the ways early experiences with caregivers influence later psychic functioning. This confirmation comes at a time when psychoanalysts are more accepting of new ideas, have greater tolerance for ambiguity and plurality, and more fully recognize the complexities of human development. Analysts currently seem more open to considering ways in which nonlinear dynamic systems theory, which addresses the complexity and fluidity of the developmental process, may be more relevant to psychoanalysis than either/or polarizations such as drive vs. object relations theories, and one-person versus two-person technical approaches. Many psychoanalysts are also recognizing the value of empirical research and are willing to consider empirical findings. These shifts present greater possibilities for dialogue not only among differing schools of thought within psychoanalysis, but also with neighboring sciences whose focus, methodology, and data are different from our own.

In the year 2000, JAPA (48/4) published a series of papers that began such a dialogue, one between attachment theory and psychoanalysis. That dialogue made clear that further discussion and rapprochement between the theories of Margaret Mahler, contemporary developmental research findings, and John Bowlby were not only necessary but essential. The following four papers, each pursuing a different direction, continue that discussion. Two of Mahler's original collaborators,