Margaret Schoenberger Mahler was born in Sopron, on the border of what is now Hungary and Austria, on May 10, 1897. Her courage and individuality were manifest from the start: she wanted to be a physician, like her father. Dr. Schoenberger generously allowed her to leave home so that she could study medicine, first in Budapest, then in Munich and Vienna. After practicing pediatrics, her interest focused on psychiatry and psychoanalysis. She completed her psychoanalytic training in Vienna with August Aichhorn as her training analyst; later, in London, she was analyzed by Willi Hoffer. Both men had a lasting influence on her work and her thought, and she often spoke of them with great fondness.
Two observations during those Vienna years served as formative influences on Dr. Mahler's thinking. The first was the dramatic contrast between the malnourished, marasmic babies in a sterile institution bereft of any personal attention who died in droves, as she put it, and the babies who, though critically ill when they were admitted to another institution where they were handled with personal warmth, not only survived but thrived. The other observation that made an indelible impression was the contrast between the development of normal children in a well-baby clinic and the psychotic children she was seeing in private treatment.
From the beginning, Dr. Mahler's work had what can in retrospect be seen as an evolutionary history. Shortly after arriving in the United States in 1938 she began her tic studies, which not only firmly established her in the vanguard of psychoanalytic researchers, but, with their emphasis on body motility and emotional expressiveness, constituted another way station toward her later work.
As early as 1949, Dr. Mahler first adumbrated her theory regarding the nature of infantile psychosis. It was ten years later that she introduced her hypothesis of the universality of the symbiotic nature of the mother-infant relation as well as the hypothesis of the obligatory separation-individuation process in normal development. These hypotheses led to her research studies on childhood psychoses and on average mothers with their normal babies.
She explained in her Brill Lecture in 1962 the particular line her research studies took. “At an advanced stage in their life work some psychoanalysts seek to come closer to the actual fountain-head of their reconstructive efforts. Some, like myself, seek verbal and preverbal observational data—in statu nascendi—such as will confirm, refute, modify, or elaborate psychoanalytic work with neurotic adults and children, but also to gain additional perspective and to validate previous studies in the area of infantile psychosis.”
It is generally conceded that Dr. Mahler's concepts provide a useful framework for ordering and organizing complex observational data that serve as a basis for making inferences about the intrapsychic process of separation-individuation, for examining early determinants of pathology during the oedipal phase and later in life, and for making connecting links between our reconstructive-genetic theory and the findings of developmental research.
Dr. Mahler's work was distinguished by a rare originality in observing essential phenomena in children's behavior; by an admirable talent to formulate original hypotheses and to verify or modify these in research studies; and by a unique ability to conceptualize and publish her findings in a felicitous literary style. She received countless awards and honors.
But it is not only for her research contributions that Dr. Mahler will be remembered. As a clinician she was superb, and as a teacher she had few equals. Extraordinarily generous of her time and with her advice, she had an unusual capacity to put the most complex issues and concepts into terms that made them clear and comprehensible. Always attentive to details, whether observing, collating data, or preparing material for publication, she never failed to see both the trees and the woods.
Dr. Mahler's accomplishments owe much to her extraordinary character. It is not given to many to be able to follow their own bent. Her unswerving singleness of purpose was all the more admirable in that it developed independently of and yet ran parallel with the work of Anna Freud and Melanie Klein. Dr. Mahler's courage and integrity, her creativity, are beyond question; her energy and determination can best be described as phenomenal. Until the time of her death on October 2, 1985, she remained actively involved in her research. When colleagues twenty (and more) years her junior were gratefully collapsing at the end of a day, she was meeting several times a week with colleagues, showing the same youthful curiosity, the same intellectual alertness, and the same ability to open up new avenues for the understanding of the human mind that had always been characteristic of her. These meetings continued to reveal the remarkably enriching collaboration she was able to evolve between herself, her co-workers, and many colleagues. What was truly astonishing was her continuing interest in new findings, her receptivity to new ideas, and, most important, her willingness to change her mind and revise long-cherished beliefs, as she did regarding the nature of the autistic phase.
In her personal relations Margaret Mahler's humanity, charm, warmth, and empathy resulted in her forming deep, long-standing relationships with a great many people. The very intensity of her friendships, however, frequently made for trouble, as equanimity was not her strong point. Angry outbursts of temper were frequent, but were always followed by remorse and reconciliation. Although she needed to maintain or to alternate between closeness and distance in her relationships, she had not only a large number of close co-workers and colleagues but an even larger number—in fact an astonishing number—of devoted friends whom she had known over many years. This capacity to maintain so many devoted friendships for so long bespeaks of a personal genius comparable to her scientific genius. Her particular kindness to young colleagues, her resourcefulness and generosity in giving
them a leg up at the outset of their careers is legendary. Space and limited knowledge do not permit me to detail her very special relationships with many people from many walks of life, as well as her interest in art, music, and literature.
One quality that stood out in particular was the very high standards she set for herself and for others. These standards were a source of her greatness, but were also the source of dissatisfaction and misunderstanding. No matter the size or importance of the task she undertook, she found it necessary to live up to these standards, and, to a lesser extent, she expected the same of those who worked with her. I have learned most of what I know about young children from Margaret Mahler. I may have learned even more by trying to live up to her standards. They have become a part of me, always present when I work, write, or speak. They are the most valuable legacy she left me.
I, like many others, will miss Margaret Mahler as my mentor, colleague, and close friend. Her scientific work will remain. What we have lost is a lively, exciting human being.