Psyche and Environment Sociocultural Variations in Separation and Individuation

Every individual provides evidence of various points of view—biological, physical, psychological, social—from which human beings can be observed. Empirical research must take all these factors into account, since all of them play their parts in the development of personality.

I propose to discuss particular sociocultural variables in the early mother-child relationship and their possible effects on psychic structure and personality development. This exploration takes into consideration both the dyadic relationship of mother and child and the comparatively long period of postnatal growth, underscoring the fact that by the time man reaches genital maturity, about one fifth or one quarter of his life expectancy has already elapsed.

The impact of this prolonged dependence is a key to the essential human condition, and to the complexities and details of individual life. During the comparatively long period in which the child lives in a symbiotic relationship with his mother, he moves from an initial stage of relative undifferentiation toward an awareness and gradual discovery of his own body as well as an experimentation with his immediate environment. Psychoanalysis