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[Mother-infant interaction and the origin of self awareness in the nursing infant]

D Spooner1, M Ricard, J F Saucier

  • 1Département de psychologie, Université de Montréal, Québec.

Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. Revue Canadienne De Psychiatrie
|August 1, 1992
PubMed

The mother is the principal care-giving partner of the infant and an important source for the development of self-awareness and self-esteem. The importance of the early relational experiences of the nursing infant with its mother has been widely emphasized by the psychoanalytical approach. Through this special interaction with the parent, the infant gradually internalized images leading to the individuated self and to self-love. The purpose of this paper is to present succinctly some of the broad theoretical positions regarding the forming of the self in the nursing infant, first within the "classical" psychoanalytical current, then under the impact of more recent research in experimental psychology which have given rise to new syntheses. Empirically, the capacity for self-recognition may be observed during early childhood by means of a child's reactions in front of the mirror; therefore, the work dealing with this phenomenon will be discussed briefly.

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