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This paper concerns the reevocation of unresolved conflicts related to the rapprochement subphase of the separation-individuation process during the psychotherapy of two adult women. Their earlier difficulties were reactivated with unusual intensity following important alterations in their children's developmental status, and were coalesced within the treatment setting as a conscious wish to be more autonomous from their own mothers, yet retain their mother's love. This wish represents the unconscious revival of the internal struggle to separate from a mother experienced as overly controlling, omnipotent, and intrusive. The partial resolution of associated conflicts had significant consequences for the mothering capacities of these women. The interplay between the unresolved rapprochement themes that arose and the resurgence of related anal developmental issues will be discussed. For a full description of rapprochement and its vicissitudes for the mother and the child, the reader is referred to Mahler's theory of separation-individuation (Mahler et al., 1975).
The following clinical vignettes illustrate the manner in which early failures in the object relations with their own mothers had impinged on the identification process (Benedek, 1959), influencing and interfering with these women's functioning in a specific area of mothering: the fostering of autonomy and initiative in their children.