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Maternal refers to the [[physical ]] and [[psychological ]] care given to [[another ]] person on the [[model ]] of a needy [[infant]]. For [[Freud ]] ever since the [[Project ]] for a [[Scientific ]] [[Psychology ]] (1950c [1895]), the ambiguity of the maternal for the infant was inherent in its ambiguous [[nature]]: [[breast]]-[[object ]] or person-[[mother]], [[total]]/partial, [[satisfying ]] [[needs ]] (mixed with the quality of care dispensed and the sensations procured), [[internal]]/external, protective shield/seduction.

Freud isolated an essential component in these dualities: the care associated with the protective shield and intended to [[satisfy ]] needs also awakens [[partial ]] [[sexual ]] [[drives ]] in the [[erotogenic ]] zones. Supported by the [[self]]-preservation drives, they [[manifest ]] themselves in auto-[[eroticism]]. The infant stimulates the erotogenic zone freed from [[need]], creating a second erotogenic zone. This is accompanied by [[fantasy ]] [[activity]], which then replaces this self-production of [[pleasure]]. The ego thus develops and becomes [[autonomous ]] through the [[internalization ]] of maternal functions (1905d).

The maternal object is at the origin of [[desire]], but is sensorially initially known with [[certainty ]] by the pleasure ego. In the infant's first [[memories]], [[perception ]] of this object is associated with cessation of [[unpleasure]], sensations of nursing or contact, and the pleasure of elimination. The infant is vitally dependent on this perception, since it compensates for its original powerlessness. The numerous [[memory ]] traces [[left ]] behind serve various functions. The ego makes use of memories of the shared origin of pleasure and memories of the maternal object to maintain the two modes of [[mental ]] operation. Internally, the ego begins to conceive of the continuity of the internal object through hallucinated reinvestment of the memory traces. Between [[inside ]] and [[outside]], ego responses, combined with the emotive and muscular expressions of tension, gives [[meaning]]: It establishes mutual [[understanding ]] and provides a basis for gratitude. Externally, the maternal object, although essential, is lost, sought for (1926d [1925]), and possibly rediscovered. The mother's [[absence ]] and the [[loss ]] of the object (initially unthinkable [[other ]] than as a malefic occurrence) are prototypes of [[danger]]. The desire for the mother unaccompanied by her [[presence ]] triggers [[anxiety ]] and mobilizes [[thought]].

"For the infant the [[psychic ]] maternal object replaces the fetal [[biological ]] [[situation]]" (1926d [1925]). The breast epitomizes that sensory object, which has become mental. A part of the ego-other, susceptible of [[being ]] lost outside yet preserved inside, the sensory object thus forms the core around which [[narcissistic ]] [[unity ]] is organized. The infant's [[consciousness ]] of no longer being the breast triggers a constructive depressive crisis during [[weaning ]] in [[subjects ]] introduced to the [[oedipal ]] drama. The maternal fusion is then [[repressed ]] to promote a bond with the mother. Yet [[unconscious ]] ideals continue the infant's primary [[identification ]] with the original infant-mother unity.

Whenever an aspect of the repressed primary maternal fusion becomes [[conscious]], a [[feeling ]] of the [[uncanny ]] overcomes the [[subject]], while [[regression ]] promotes the subject's nightly [[hallucinatory ]] [[return ]] to the maternal breast in [[dream ]] [[thoughts ]] (Braunschweig and Fain, 1975). The child—seduced by the care he has incorporated with repressed sexual aspects of the mother, and subject to continued [[excitation ]] of this internal sensory object whose [[signifiers ]] are enigmatic—attempts to [[control ]] the [[experience ]] by [[repeating ]] it autoerotically.

The subject's [[imago]], an [[imaginary ]] [[schema]], arises from the [[libido]]-charged imprint resulting from the attentions of the mother and attached to the subject's inner core. It provides a focus for regression, orients the [[choice ]] of a man's [[sexual object ]] later in [[life]], and definitively marks the secondary nature of the [[relationship ]] of a daughter to her [[father ]] and to men. For the mother, a [[girl ]] who has become a [[woman]], maternal [[love ]] prolongs sublimated [[sexuality ]] as an alloy of [[narcissism ]] and object love. Unbounded solicitous affection gives rise to a "shared [[illusion]]" of unity between mother and [[child]]: the child constructs itself in unity with the maternal, in a [[space ]] for a two, seeking reciprocity, which is then individualized.

The mother then leaves the [[phase ]] of "primary maternal preoccupation" to address her womanly desire for a lover and her sexuality. This introduces the child to its limitations (Aulagnier, 1975/2001). Maternal affection is a reaction [[formation]], a compromise between sexual and [[aggressive ]] drives.

Melanie [[Klein ]] presents the bisexual maternal as the foundation of the psychic [[world]], which contains both [[good ]] and bad [[objects]]. For Donald [[Winnicott]], only [[satisfaction ]] of initial psychic and somatic needs frees the subject from the illusion of omnipotence and establishes the pleasure of [[thinking]]. For Wilfred Bion, maternal reverie initiates thought. And for Didier Anzieu (1989), perceived maternal affects [[form ]] part of the skin-ego. Freud thus initiated a series of developments in thinking on mother-child attachment and interaction that has continued to this day.

Abandonment; ; Ajase [[complex]]; Alpha function; [[Anaclisis]]/anaclitic; [[Archaic mother]]; [[Breastfeeding]]; Censoring the lover in her; Collected Papers on [[Schizophrenia ]] and Related Subjects; Counter-[[Oedipus]]; [[Dead ]] mother complex; [[Double ]] [[bind]]; Early interactions; [[Erotogenicity]]; Eroticism, [[oral]]; [[False ]] self; [[Family]]; [[Family romance]]; [[Feminine ]] sexuality; [[Femininity]]; [[Fort-Da]]; Good-enough mother; Handling; Holding; [[Homosexuality]]; I; Identification; Identifactory project; Illusion; [[Imaginary identification]]/symbolic identification; [[Infans]]; Infant [[development]]; Infant observation (therapeutic); [[Intergenerational]]; [[Lost object]]; Love; Maternal care; Maternal reverie, capacity for; Mother goddess; Narcissism; [[Negative ]] therapeutic reaction; Object; Object, [[change ]] of/choice of; [[Object relations ]] [[theory]]; [[Oceanic feeling]]; [[Oedipus complex]]; Parenthoood; [[Perversion]]; ; [[Phallic ]] mother; Phallic woman; Postnatal [[depression]]; Pregnancy, fantasy of; [[Primary love]]; Primary need; Primary object; [[Real]], [[Symbolic]], and Imaginary father; Reverie; [[Signal ]] anxiety; [[Social ]] feeling ([[individual ]] psychology); Sucking/thumbsucking; Symbiosis/symbiotic relation; [[Technique ]] with [[adults]], [[psychoanalytic]]; [[Want ]] of being/lack of being; Weaning; [[Wish ]] for a [[baby]]; Wish, hallucinatory satisfaction of a.

* [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1905d). [[Three ]] essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.* ——. (1926d [1925]). Inhibitions, [[symptoms]], and anxiety. SE, 20: 75-172.