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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 careassociated 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.
==See Also==
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.
==References==
<references/>
* [[Freud, Sigmund]]. (1905d). [[Three]] essays on the theory of sexuality. SE, 7: 123-243.
* ——. (1926d [1925]). Inhibitions, [[symptoms]], and anxiety. SE, 20: 75-172.
* ——. (1950c [1895]). Project for a scientific psychology. SE, 1: 281-387.
[[Category:Psychoanalysis]]
[[Category:Terms]]
[[Category:Concepts]]
[[Category:Sigmund Freud]]
