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internal and rela�onal dynamics. Her husband True Dependence
was seen by her as a repe��on of her neglec�ul During this period of transi�oning from omni-
parents. She was seen by him as the demanding potent control to true dependence on another,
parent who could not be sa�sfied. As truth be- the infant and mother face turbulent waters.
gan to set Sylvia and David free, they felt con- The infant’s will tests the mother’s early limit-
tained in a church community that supported se�ng, and the mother’s delayed responsive-
the life changes they were a�emp�ng to make. ness risks the breakdown of the infant’s trust.
Their understanding that God was present in Theorists (Hartman, 1958; Kohut, 2014) descri-
their day to day lives contributed to their appli- be the necessity of op�mal frustra�on during
ca�on of their growth in therapy and they hap- this period. The mother must con�nue to meet
pily experienced a growing sense of stability in the infant’s needs, but can begin to foster the
their marriage. We understand that basic trust recogni�on that life is changing. Her infant
or “faith through” reliable rela�onships with must be helped to accept the reality that the
their therapists created the safe space for Sylvia world does not revolve en�rely around it. This
and Dave to consider the God we, as their the- is both good for a child and necessary for the
rapists, represented. child’s development of a social consciousness
that is altruis�c.
Faith in an “Other” Winnico� describes the mother’s posture as
“surviving destruc�on” (Winnico�, 1968) while
In Infancy the enraged infant seeks to retaliate against
Illusion of Dependence these new limits. If the mother responds in a
Though “faith through an ‘other’” and “faith in firm and caring fashion, without retalia�on for
an ‘other” may sound very similar, the empha- the infant’s response, the infant comes to reali-
sis in the second phrase makes all the diffe- ze that mother is separate and is not controlled
rence. In the early stages of infancy, infants feel or destroyed by its ac�ons. This movement
merged with the mother, and come to expect from an illusion of control of the mother for sa-
that her response to their needs is because �sfac�on of needs, to dependence on a separa-
they have control over the mother (Winnico�, te mother whose love for her infant is the mo�-
1965). This has been termed “omnipotent con- va�on for her care, gives birth to trust and faith
trol”(5). According to Donald Winnico� (6), the in another person.
infant experiences an illusion of crea�ng the re-
sponsive mother that a�ends to its needs. He Object Constancy
writes, “In clinical terms: two babies are fee- Object constancy (Hartmann, 1958; Mahler, M.
ding at the breast. One is feeding on the self, S., Pine, F., & Bergman, A.,1975) develops sub-
since the breast and the baby have not yet be- sequent to the acceptance of mother as a sepa-
come (for the baby) separate phenomena. The rate person who will nonetheless be faithful to
other is feeding from another-than-me source the child. The child may not want the mother to
”(Hoffman, p. 99) go away, but it has realized that although mo-
ther is a separate person and makes decisions
For an infant to develop into a mature, socially based on her own needs, the child remains al-
integrated adult, it is necessary that the infant ways in mind. Mother will return.
move beyond the experience of the world
being an extension of itself. This aspect of ma- Experiencing and Understanding
turing involves the infant’s recogni�on that, in This era in development increasingly u�lizes
fact, mother is an “other” and has personhood, higher cogni�ve processes to aid the child in
needs, and desires of her own. She is separate, understanding and coping with life. Once de-
and the infant does not create or control her. pendent on primary processes, which were
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