A collection of the papers of Margaret S. Mahler, providing an exposition of the development of Mahler's essential concepts.

The pioneering contribution to infant psychology that gave us separation and individuation documents with standard-setting care the intrapsychic process of a child's emergence from symbiotic fusion with the mother toward affirmation of his own psychological birth. Available for the first time in paperback to a new generation of students and clinicians on the twenty-fifth anniversary of its original publication.

'The biological birth of the human infant and the psychological birth of the individual are not coincident in time. The former is a dramatic, observable, and well-circumscribed event; the latter a slowly unfolding intra psychic process.'Thus begins this highly acclaimed book in which the author and her collaborators break new ground in developmental psychology and present the first complete theoretical statement of the author's observations on the normal separation-individuation process. Separation and individuation are presented in this major work as two complementary developments. Separation is described as the child's emergence from a symbiotic fusion with the mother, while individuation consists of those achievements making the child's assumption of his own individual characteristics. Each of the sub-phases of separation-individuation is described in detail, supported by a wealth of clinical observations which trace the tasks confronting the infant and his mother as he progresses towards achieving his own individuality.