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The ability to make contact is a critical element in the processes of separation-individuation and libido-object constancy formation (Fraiberg, 1969; A. Freud, 1968; Mahler, 1968, 1972a, 1972b, 1975; Spitz, 1965). The ways in which a young child contacts or avoids contacting the primary object, usually the mother, are significant (Bowlby 1969, 1973).
Modern psychoanalytic theory offers a major technical innovation called contact functioning:
To permit the narcissistic transference to develop fully, interventions are cued to the patient's verbal attempts to solicit some information about his characteristic preoccupations, to satisfy his personal interest in the practitioner, or to convert silence or monologue into dialogue through a casual question. In previous reports, such behavior has been referred to as ‘contact functioning,’ and its use as a timer and operational guide to goal-oriented communication has been discussed (; ). The contact functioning helps the analyst to provide frustration and gratification in the precise balance needed to prevent the aggressive impulses from shattering the narcissistic defense.
Perhaps in normal development a “good enough mother” provides a similar balance of frustration and gratification so that