Omnipotence and the Avoidance of Pleasure: A Contribution to the Problem of Separation Anxiety

In recent years, psychoanalysts have turned their interest to the infant's earliest years and to the infant's first object relation. In a certain group of patients severe anxiety consistently occurs in response to efficient functioning and/or some accomplishments which in the normal individual would evoke feelings of pleasure or self-satisfaction. Although Freud (8) described this phenomenon as being related to an oedipal conflict, I believe in many instances this problem has its roots in a much earlier period of development, i.e., that it is the anxiety of separation which is evoked and sets in motion a destructive regression. In analysis this state of affairs is apt to manifest itself in the form of a negative therapeutic reaction.

Reviewing some of the literature touching upon this problem lends credence to this position. For example, Bowlby(1,2) speaks of separation anxiety occurring in the infant when his instinctual responses are not properly or sufficiently responded to by the mother. Spitz(14) pinpoints such anxiety responses as occurring at about seven months of life when recognition of the face of the mother brings comfort, whereas others, who are experienced as strangers, evoke anxiety. As the infant's world enlarges, he is able to respond securely to others, and by the second year the relatively secure child can be observed to actively leave the parents for various periods of time to involve himself in the external environment, e.g., discovering and exploring new objects or playing with other children.

This capacity for interest in the new and unique is crucial because separation anxiety may overpower the satisfaction derived from this sense of adventure and mastery and bring about fear or panic. Winnicott(16) suggests that success here depends upon how well the infant has been able to include not-me objects and phenomena into his own body-scheme. Fairbairn, (6,7) however, believes that it is this very conflict between the progressive urge for separation f