Hello, dear readers! The bond between mother and child is an invisible thread that firmly connects their hearts throughout their lives. Wherever the baby is, the mother is always mentally with him, she prays for his health, her heart is filled with love and life has great meaning. This connection has no boundaries and cannot be destroyed.
Psychological connection
Having become a mother, from the very first days you will feel this irresistible craving for a tiny creature. What about the child? He, in turn, demands your presence every second, he still does not understand much, but nature has endowed the cub with instincts that are triggered for almost any reason. He may be scared, he may be in pain and cold, he may be bored, and he loudly demands the presence of his mother.
No loving mother is able to ignore, although such a frequent demand for her presence can anger and irritate. However, it is not for nothing that nature endowed the baby with the ability to cry loudly. Already in the maternity hospital, you can easily identify the cry of your child, even if you are in separate rooms, and in life, the call for help for the child will always be heard by his mother.
Does your baby often ask to be held? This is not a whim, this is a normal physiological need. Many mothers are tired in their hands due to housework and child care. The phrase “you don’t need to accustom your child to your hands” is heard more and more often, and yet in some tribes in Africa, women do not let their children go from their hands from birth until about three years of age. They don’t even have the idea of leaving the child and going about their business. This has a huge advantage: the child is always under supervision, he is calm next to his mother, he does not cry. By tying someone to yourself with a scarf, you can do a lot of housework.
In addition, researchers have found that children growing up in their mother’s arms or in a sling are much smarter and more developed than their peers, who were often left alone in the crib in infancy. Being always with his mother, the baby remembers what his mother does and learns the same. In general, if pregnancy in humans lasted, for example, like that of elephants for two years, then perhaps there would be no need to carry the child to term in arms, he would get up in a couple of hours and follow his mother, however, even after A baby elephant up to the age of five requires careful supervision, and what can we say about human cubs, who are so unadapted to life after birth.
The cub perceives it very painfully if separated from its mother before the age of three. The same invisible connection between mother and child will firmly connect them, and being separated, both will experience anxiety and excitement. The woman will feel guilty before the child, and he will feel defenseless, weak and very lonely.
It is unknown how separation will turn out in the future, some children withdraw into themselves, others become nervous and irritable, and some may develop health problems, lack of appetite, restless sleep with frequent waking up, crying for no reason. Never leave your child with strangers; before sending him to a nursery or kindergarten, go through all the stages of preparation for preschool. Read about it.
Try not to part with your baby up to a year old, thereby you will build a base of mutual understanding and trust, you will not deprive yourself of the most wonderful time when he says the cherished “Aha”, or when one day you will be able to see him sitting independently in the crib, and his first steps when they are so unstable and the support of their beloved mother is required. All these wonderful moments exist only once and cannot be experienced again...
What else does the close connection between mother and child lead to?
How often do you have to get up at night to calm your baby down, rock him if he’s crying, or cover him up if the room is cold? You don’t get enough sleep, your child’s routine is disrupted. And this happens to those who rush early to separate their child from themselves and try to teach him to sleep in his own crib.
Children up to a certain age have a physiological need to sleep next to their mother. And this is provided for by the same nature. If in ancient times mothers slept separately from their children, they would have frozen in a cold cave, and the human race would have ended its existence long ago.
Another animal example, have you ever seen a dog or cat sleep separately from its babies? The period when a baby needs to sleep with its mother is different for everyone. Some people need a year or two, while others need six months, or even less. If you want to teach your baby to sleep separately as quickly as possible and without unpleasant consequences, then read about this in the article in more detail.
Dear mothers, enjoy the time when your baby especially needs you, take care of these wonderful moments and give him care, attention and love. Very little time will pass when he will completely separate from you and live his own personal life, but the connection between you will be strong, and the relationship will be warm and trusting.
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Irina, please tell us about the connection between a child and mother under the age of one year, from a psychological point of view. How does mother’s going to work affect a child (7 months old)? What to do with a baby’s attachment to his mother’s breast if he is used to calming down only in his mother’s arms, sucking milk, and suddenly he is left with a nanny all day and forced to eat from a bottle? Thank you.
The question was asked a long time ago. I apologize in advance for the delay to the author (whose child has clearly grown up :)). In response to this letter, I would like to start a big and serious conversation about attachment, about how the experience of interaction with parents (primarily with mother) then passes through our entire lives like a bold dotted line. 
To answer the question briefly, the connection between mother and child under one year of age is colossal and comprehensive. A human baby is born tiny, helpless and defenseless. He needs someone nearby who is sensitive and reliable, who will satisfy his needs - in food, sleep, comfort, safety, calm, emotional communication, love. Without a loving adult, a baby simply cannot survive. And here instincts come into play.
Immediately after birth, when the baby is placed on the mother’s stomach, the first visual and bodily contact is established - imprinting: the mother remembers her child, and the child remembers his mother. This postpartum hug is, in a sense, a fateful episode in life. In the first hours and days after birth, an instinctive “attachment program” is launched through carrying, cradling, and breastfeeding. For the baby, the mother's affection means that he will be fed on time, well-groomed, protected and will receive everything he needs.
Therefore: the main thing a little person needs is the presence, warmth and INCLUSION of a loving adult who responds to his needs and satisfies them.
If a child always receives a response to his call, if they play with him, communicate with him, caress him, showing their love in every possible way, if his life is stable, orderly and free from fear, if there is an attentive, understandable, PREDICTABLE adult next to him, the child will warm up to him trust and acquires the very first, most important feeling, which then becomes the basis for its further development. American psychologist E. Erikson called him a sense of basic trust in the world.
Basic trust is the intuitive confidence that life is good (and if it suddenly gets bad, they will help you, they won’t abandon you), that you don’t need to protect yourself from the outside world, that you can trust it. A person endowed with this “basic trust” believes in himself, in his own abilities, is open, optimistic, friendly and capable of long-term, deep and warm relationships with other people.
If a child does not receive proper care, does not receive loving care, and is treated inconsistently, then he develops mistrust - fearfulness and suspicion, a feeling of anxiety and helplessness in a potentially hostile world.
The first years of life are also the time when such an important internal construct as attachment. Initially, it develops in our relationship with our mother (or the figure that replaces her). And - the most interesting thing - we then transfer this established model on relationships with other people. Those. what we learned in childhood, in our relationship with our mother, is what we live with, and so we recreate– with partners, friends, children.
The work of the English psychologist and pediatrician J. Bowlby (mid-20th century) was devoted to the study of attachment. In his research, he showed that for a child’s mental health it is necessary to establish a warm, trusting, joyful relationship with the mother. Bowlby's theoretical positions were confirmed by the experiments of his student M. Ainsworth (in particular, she found that The relationship between mother and child develops during the first three months of life and determines the quality of their attachment at the end of the year and beyond.).
Stages of attachment formation
0-6 months The baby develops an idea of the main object of affection in his life. As a rule, this person is a mother who cares and takes care. At this stage, it is very important that the “object” is CONSTANT, RESPONSIVE, predictable and does not fall out of sight for more than 3 hours. The baby has a need to perceive maternal stimuli. And if they suddenly disappear for a long time, the child begins to get nervous and worried.
At this stage, both “mono-attachment” (to one person) and “multiple attachment” (to several people) can be formed. If there are 3-4 people in a baby’s life who share care for him, then this is very good. But there must be a clear hierarchy among them: here is the main object of affection (mom), here are the rest on the list (dad, grandmother, aunt, etc.). The rhythm of the appearance of these “others” should also, ideally, be orderly and regular: for example, dad bathes every evening, grandma comes a couple of times a week and lets mom go on errands.
6-12 months The baby already develops his own “attachment behavior” (for example, he clings to his mother when he sees strangers). If everything developed well in the first half of the year, then now the child is able to accept a new person (nanny). It is necessary to involve a new person in the process of caring for the baby very gradually (2-3 weeks): at first the nanny is simply present, observing, the child gets used to her, then gradually she is included in the care process. When the moment comes for mom to leave, mom leaves (even despite her protests). And he definitely comes back! - with a happy (not worried) face and in full confidence that the child was fine in her absence.
It is believed that in the period of 6-9 months. Mom's absence can extend up to 6 hours every day or up to 12 hours 1-3 times a week. And after 9 months. Mom (if really necessary) can go to work. Breastfeeding, if desired, in this case continues in the mornings, evenings, at night, on weekends, and during the day the mother can express milk at work - in a meeting room, a rest room, or any other secluded place. If this is not possible, and the child is transferred to artificial (or mixed) feeding, this must again be done very gently and gradually. It is important to provide the physical, emotional closeness and sense of security that feeding gives to a child through other means - hugs, kisses, stroking, playing together, singing, and a calm, spiritual atmosphere in the family. This will make the weaning process the least traumatic and will serve as a unique experience for the child: yes, there are losses in life, but they will not abandon me, they will support me, I have someone to rely on.
And in no case should you allow yourself to be consumed by a feeling of guilt (“I’m a bad mother since I don’t breastfeed my child and went to work”), since in this case a huge part of the internal energy will be spent not on the baby, but on self-flagellation and experiences. Yes, this is how the circumstances developed, but nothing can stop you from giving your treasure love, warmth and affection.
Remember: a mother is not obliged to be with her own child everywhere and always, at any cost, forgetting herself. But she is obliged to make sure that her baby’s life remains orderly, stable, and that there is a warm, reliable, accepting person, on whom you can rely in everything.
12-20 months This is a difficult period. The child already has a memory, which means suspicions arise - what if the mother leaves now and does not return? Rituals that are repeated day after day continue to play a huge role at this stage: for example, the mother leaves, and the baby and the nanny accompany her to the elevator and wave.
20-30 months This is the attachment stabilization phase. The period of confirmation of the existing picture of the world. Ideally, you should not be separated from your child for a long time. Non-traumatically, the baby experiences separation from his mother for no more than a day. 2 days is already a tense situation. 3 weeks is a critical period. After 3 weeks, the child will either form a new attachment, or (if he does not find a new object) will collapse.
In the following posts:
- what happens to a child when his mother suddenly disappears from his life for several days;
- types of attachment;
- how we build relationships with other people based on the formed attachment model.
Irina Chesnova, family psychologist
During pregnancy you were inseparable. And although now you are two separate people, it is difficult for you to be separated. Pregnancy is a magical period. You carry under your heart a second person who breathes your air, eats your food, whom you protect, whom you care about. You are together 24 hours a day and even though there are two of you, you function as one organism. Childbirth divides you. But for many months you live as if the umbilical cord had never been cut. The closeness between mother and child is unusual - an inextricable bond unites you. And yet, for the good of the child, you must slowly, gently, but decisively separate him from you so that he moves to conquer the world. You know this perfectly, so why is it so difficult?
Two bodies, one soul
After childbirth, it is difficult for both mother and child to get used to the new situation. Some women feel empty, deprived of something extraordinarily essential. The mother, although the baby is already lying in a separate crib, instead of swimming in its fruit water, subsequently feels an inextricable connection with him. The child feels the same. A baby up to 5 months thinks that he and his mother are one whole. And only at about 8 months does he realize that his mother is separated from him. In this regard, he begins to be afraid - because since the mother is separate, when she leaves without him, she may disappear forever. The baby does not yet know how to keep his mother’s paintings, and therefore, around 7-8 months, babies react sharply to separation. They don’t see their mothers, which is where despair comes from. The so-called fear of separation appears.
Further development inclines the child to explore the environment, but in the future he feels safer when his mother is in sight. Only a two-year-old knows how to remain without his mother and not feel the fear that she will never return. The child, along with the passage of time, copes with everything. And mom?
You've probably noticed that you often wake up a minute before your baby starts crying. Before he reaches out for the bottle, you hand it to him. Before you want to eat, you will feed. It’s no wonder that you understand the baby so well. You feel that no one understands your child like you and no one will satisfy his needs as well. You must be near your treasure all the time. And every day it moves away from you in order to get acquainted with the world.
To meet the world
Even though you love your baby madly, you adore being with him and you understand his needs perfectly, you must allow him to be without you. It may be hard to understand, but by allowing him to be independent and encouraging him to explore the world, you show him love. After all, you want to raise your child as an independent, brave, open person, right? If so, try:
show the child that not only you are good and safe. Try to leave the child for several hours with dad, grandmother, or beloved aunt. The baby will make sure that it is also good with them, learn new games, learn to communicate with someone else.
You would be willing to bend the sky for him, but remember that nothing influences a baby as well as clearly defined rules of the game. He does not know what is possible, what is not, how he should behave, what the world expects from him. The baby needs you to tell him this. You are not doing any harm to your child by prohibiting him from sticking his fingers into a socket or putting any garbage in his mouth. With you, your child has a chance to learn how to cope with everything.
Remember! Just because you no longer carry a baby under your heart does not mean that you will stop being the most important thing to him. After all, you are his mother.
SYMBIOTIC ASPECTS OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MOTHER AND CHILD
N.V. SAMOUKINA
In the unstable conditions of the transition period and crisis, people need values that they can “rely on” and that are not destroyed by any political and socio-economic disruptions. Such eternal values, undoubtedly, are in the sphere of personal relationships - friendships, love and family. And in this area, the core that carries the main burden of people’s value expectations regarding love and support is, of course, the relationship between mother and child. The life goals of a generation may radically change, the state in which a person was born may disappear, the streets on which he lived, met his loved ones and walked with children may lose their usual names, the institution in which he worked, but the mother’s love given to him, may cease to exist. from the beginning of life, will remain with him forever, feeding him with her life-giving warmth.
The “transfer” of the main “array” of internal energy of the value and emotional order from professional, social and other relationships to the “most eternal” and “purest” relationships, which are the relationships between mother and child, no matter how sad it sounds, begins to deform and destroy precisely these are the most significant relationships. Desperate to find her niche in life in a collapsing world, the mother transfers all her strength to the child, trying to become a “wall” for him, protecting him from the difficult problems of his current existence. In turn, a child (of any age), faced with aggressiveness and danger from the outside world, strives to find a “quiet refuge” and protection in maternal love. As a result, they both make their relationships overly rich, intense, interdependent and even painful, trying to realize themselves in them and only in them, since full realization in the distorted outside world is difficult or impossible. They live for each other and do not let each other go, thereby creating the only possibility of mutual love and warmth and at the same time mutual lack of freedom and an incomprehensible, unnaturally closed circuit.
X In one of the southern cities, after a seminar, a respectable man of mature years approached me. He asked to see his elderly mother, who had begun to exhibit sclerotic phenomena. When talking with him, it turned out that he holds the post of vice president of a large bank in the city, was married twice, divorced and now lives with his mother. They have common money, they shop together, watch TV, go for walks, and relax in the country. And so it has been for several years. When I asked if he had a woman, he replied: “It’s useless, with women I have
nothing works: they don’t need me, but my money. Mom doesn't need anything from me, she just loves me."
X At the reception - a mother and her teenage son. The boy does not go to school and is home-schooled. He does not leave the house alone, always and everywhere - only with his mother. During the consultation, he sits next to her, holding her hand.
There is a father in the house, but, being the owner of a large company, he works a lot and rarely communicates with his son. In the relationship between spouses, there is a distance that the husband experiences as natural, but the wife does not accept it and suffers. Her son became for her the only person on whom she could “pour” her love and whom she was afraid to let go of, since her husband’s work and constant overload caused her rejection: “I don’t want my son to be the same as my husband.”
X The family consists of a grandfather, a grandmother, a divorced mother and her twelve-year-old daughter. The girl has not been going to school for about three years and is home-schooled. Reason: the mother is afraid that at school her daughter will contract a viral infection, learn profane language, be subjected to violence, and finally try drugs. The mother's fears for the health and upbringing of her daughter manifested themselves during the period of her divorce from her husband, which occurred after the husband lost his job. The “other life” that arose in Russia remained incomprehensible to the young woman, scary and causing only destruction to her and her family, and it was from this life that she sought to protect her child.
X At the consultation - a mother with her second-grader son. She carefully takes off his coat, straightens his clothes, smoothes his hair and leads him into the office. Complaint: the boy is passive in class, does not answer the teacher’s questions, although he does his homework well. In front of me is a child with eyes wide open and trusting, almost not engaging in communication. Every time the psychologist asks questions, he turns to his mother, as if asking her how and what to answer. And the mother is responsible for the son.
The family consists of a father, mother and two sons. Several years ago, the eldest, who was brought for a consultation, almost died due to his father’s fault: they were crossing the street in the wrong place, and the boy was hit by the car of a “new Russian”. The mother spent a long time in the hospital nursing her child, and the father went to work for the company of the man whose car his son was hit by. The family continues to exist, but the mother has a constant fear for the life of the child, and the father is completely removed from upbringing.
The article offered to the reader does not contain a fundamental theoretical analysis, it was written in order to make the strange, contradictory and, in a psychological sense, unnatural relationship between mother and child - not only pre-teens, but also a grown-up and adult person - more understandable.
How does such a relationship arise and form between mother and child in their everyday life every day, over many months and years? What influences does the mother make and what responses does the child take? How might a psychologist feel about this? What to take as an internal support point in a conversation with a mother and her adult child? How can a psychological consultant approach the correction of these relationships, which are shrouded in an aura of holiness for people living in Russia? Which actions of the mother should be classified as positive and developmental, and which ones should be classified as negative and destructive? Can a child who has become an adult, first with the help of a psychologist and then independently, rebuild his relationship with his mother, or is he forced to come to terms with her powerful maternal instinct?
Let us turn to some works in which the search for answers to these questions was carried out. Thus, in his monograph “Maternal Right” I.Ya. Bachofen highlighted not only the positive aspect of a child’s attachment to his mother, but also the negative one. The first aspect is manifested in the unconditional love of the mother, since she loves the child not for something, but precisely because he is her child. All children of a mother have equal rights to her love and care.
because they are her children. The negative aspect of attachment is that it can hinder the development of a person’s individuality, since he remains for her (and, as a consequence, for himself) a child at a time when in fact he has already become an adult.
E. Fromm also described the positive and negative aspects of maternal love, conducting a comparative analysis of fatherhood and motherhood in this regard. Many things he said come up in modern psychological counseling. It must be remembered that for E. Fromm, mother’s love was all-protective, all-protecting and all-encompassing, while father’s love was associated with submission or rebellion. Attachment to a mother is a natural, natural attachment (unconditional love), attachment to a father is an artificial system of relationships based on power and law (conscience, duty, law, hierarchy, oppression, inequality, subordination).
The “positive” relationship with the father lies in the presence of opportunities, depending on the child’s own activity: the father’s love can be earned, it can be achieved. The “positive” of maternal love lies in its unconditionality, given at birth. The negative aspects of a father's love are associated with the fact that it is the obedient child who achieves fatherly love (continuity is obvious, but there are also limitations in innovation). The “negative” of maternal love is that it cannot be won in any way or by anything: either it is there or it is not. And this is the tragedy for the child: if the mother does not show her unconditional love for him in “healthy” ways, forcing him to develop (even in obedience), he cannot achieve her love, he has only neurotic ways: regression, infantilization, decline from the level of one’s development to that of a child.
The tragedy of the relationship between mother and child lies in the fact that even in the case of receiving unconditional maternal love at the moment of birth and accepting it as protection and support, in the process of growing up the child becomes (and should become!) independent and autonomous from the mother, must separate and leave from her to “my life”. The ringing sadness and melancholy of the mother's loneliness during the separation of her child and the deep feeling of the beginning "orphanhood" of the child himself, his constant and not always satisfied, and in recent years most often unsatisfied, need for emotional acceptance, support and security - this is the "payment" for growing up and autonomy, and now in Russia - for the destroyed values of human relations.
Accepting the fact that there are not only positive, but also negative sides in parent-child relationships, A.I. Zakharov describes cases of mother's hyperprotection in relation to her child (over-care, over-protection, over-protection), associated with control of a permissive or restrictive nature. A.V. Chernikov writes about the “double clamp” phenomenon, E.G. Eidemiller and V.V. Yustitsky describe violations of the mother's role behavior in the family and her feelings about this. V.V. Stolin records the presence of suggestion on the part of the mother and considers cases of mystification when the mother communicates with the child and behaves as if he had certain qualities. Moreover, more often it seems to imply qualities of the child that have a negative characteristic.
So, negative aspects in the relationship between mother and child were described earlier by foreign and domestic researchers. But we do not find a detailed analysis of the process itself, in which first imperceptible and then destructive
internal changes, as a result of which these relationships turn from positive and developing into negative and suppressive.
To understand how the relationship between mother and child is actually formed, it is necessary to find a logical analysis scheme that allows you to “grasp” the dynamics of the emergence and implementation of progressive and regressive tendencies in their relationship. In our opinion, one of such logical circuits can be found within the framework of the design approach. Despite the fact that the theoretical and methodological possibilities and heuristic nature of this approach are shown in works devoted to the construction of the cultural-historical concept and theory of developmental education, nevertheless, in our opinion, the ways of thinking of the researcher developed in its “layers” can be constructively applied when analyzing the problems of parent-child relationships.
It is important to distinguish between the concepts of “design” and “projection”. Projection is the transfer by a person of his own unacceptable and unconscious motives to explain the internal reasons for the actions and actions of the people around him. When explaining one's personal difficulties to external reasons, a person abdicates responsibility and achieves calm in a non-constructive, neurotic way.
Design is the process of forming certain qualities in a child or adult, in which there is always a model, which serves as the beginning of the formation process and at the same time its goal. The projection carried out by the mother in the process of building her relationship with the child and nurturing his certain qualities may or may not contain projection, but is never exhausted by the latter. Social norms and stereotypes, social and economic living conditions, the mother’s personal history in her relationships with men in general and with the child’s father in particular, the level of education and personal development, the ability for constructive reflection and self-awareness, and finally, the mother’s learned ways of interacting with her parents , - all these and many other components, in addition to projection, saturate the mother’s process of designing the psychological characteristics of her child.
Psychological design in the relationship between mother and child. When pregnancy occurs, a woman goes through more than just physiological preparation for childbirth. Together with her husband, she begins to think about who will be born - a boy or a girl, what the child will be like and what kind of mother she will be. She discusses the birth of a child with relatives and friends, walks down the street and pays attention to infants, looks at her childhood photographs, asks her mother about what she was like as a child...
In a word, a living, pulsating and changing image of her unborn child appears and forms in her mind, gradually emerging from scraps of her childhood memories and adult impressions, her preferences, desires and aspirations. Just as in her body the developing fetus is permeated with blood vessels that nourish it, so in her mind the image of the unborn child is permeated with living “threads” of her soul and character, her past experience and the experience of her parents.
It is important to emphasize that long before the birth of a child, the mother treats him in a certain way: she loves and wants him to be born, or perceives his future birth as an extra burden and gives birth to a child under the pressure of circumstances (for medical reasons it is impossible to have an abortion, “We have been living without children for a long time and someday you have to give birth, then it will be too late,” etc.). Exactly:
the child has not yet been born, and his psychological “project” already exists in the mother’s expectations; with her attitude towards him, she already assumes that he has certain personality traits, character and abilities. And after birth, consciously or unconsciously, the mother begins to communicate with him in accordance with her initial project.
Of course, a child is not a “blank canvas” on which only the mother paints his portrait. In the course of development, he himself also strives to create his own self-portrait. He leaves some colors applied by his mother, he changes them in some shades, and refuses some of his mother’s touches. But the fact is that he approaches the “psychological canvas”, on which there is already his own portrait, painted by his mother.
Transfer and assimilation of the psychological project. So, in the process of daily care for the child and communication with him, the mother “puts” a “psychological shirt” sewn in advance, even before birth, on her child. This transfer of the project occurs in direct and indirect forms.
The direct form of conveying the project is words that express the mother’s assessment of her child and her attitude towards what he is doing or has done. The indirect form is the mother's views, the intonation of her voice, interjections, touches, her actions and deeds. Quite often, in the process of directly conveying her expectations, the mother acts consciously, and in the case of an indirect form of projection, unconsciously. But the border between active consciousness, volitional aspiration, spoken words, on the one hand, and spontaneous movement, randomly heard intonation, unexpected look or action, on the other, is extremely thin and plastically changing, therefore, the identification of these two ways of designing a mother’s child is very conditional.
This transfer of the project can be expressed by the mother in positive or negative ways, creating the emotional background in which the child lives and develops throughout many years of childhood, adolescence and adolescence. A positive way of conveying is expressed as follows: “you are good,” “I love you,” “you will succeed.” Negative way: “you are worse than I would like,” “if you are better, I will love you,” “if you are what I want, you will be fine.”
In the first case (with a positive method of transmitting the project), the child receives from the mother - as a spiritual inheritance - the opportunity to treat himself well, initially and, without any doubt, positively accepting himself ("I respect myself because I am a Man") . In the second case, he rushes about and painfully doubts his own self-worth, as if rejecting his human being (“I am the worst of all,” “I have nothing to respect myself for”).
The child’s assimilation of positive or negative self-esteem occurs not only at the level of the formation of his acceptance or rejection of himself, but also at the level of his dominant emotional mood (activity, energy or depression, apathy), general life philosophy (optimism or pessimism), orientation and attitudes (struggle for oneself or submission to the influence of circumstances). These unspoken “contents” of emotional-background states are “recorded” in the unconscious sphere of the child’s psyche, just as files are recorded in a computer’s memory, and act either in the form of a “system block” (background state), or in the form of psychological “files” (actions performed by a person) opened by life , sometimes unexpected for him).
Units of transfer and assimilation of the psychological project. Transmission by mother
positive or negative attitude towards your child and, accordingly, the formation of a self-attitude - acceptance or rejection of oneself - can be decomposed into certain “units” of their verbal or non-verbal communication.
Thus, one can observe how a child is ascribed positive or negative qualities that he does not have or that have not yet manifested himself in his behavior.
Positive attribution is essentially the assignment to the child of the nearest “developmental zone” as a progressive perspective for his internal movement. In this case, the mother communicates with the child as if he had positive, “strong” sides of personality and character in the presence and in a formed state (“Why did you take this toy from kindergarten? I know you are kind and honest. Tomorrow take it to the children, they also want to play").
Negative attribution is programming a regressive life line for a child. The mother “sculpts” the negative aspects of her child’s personality and character, calling him “bad words” (“Why did you take this toy from kindergarten? You are bad! You are a thief!”).
Let's look at this example. The child took a toy from kindergarten. He took action. For himself, a child is still “nothing”! He is neither bad nor good! His mother makes him good or bad through her assessment of his actions. In her words, she denotes not so much his action as himself: “You are kind and honest” or “You are bad and a thief.” The child’s action is situational and transient, but the mother’s assessment is “recorded” in his internal system in the form of self-esteem and his emotional background state: “I am good” or “I am bad.”
Let us think: after all, such attribution occurs every day, several times a day and over many years...
Projection also occurs through the elevation or humiliation of the child by the mother. Exaltation: “You’re great! You know more than me! You know how to do what I can’t do! You speak correctly, perhaps I’ll listen to your advice.” Belittling: “You’re still little, listen to what the adults say! What do you understand! Live like mine, then you’ll understand!”
The mother’s exaltation of her child gives him self-confidence (“If my mother praises me, it means I’m worth something!”). This quality is accompanied by an internal state of active vitality, the desire for self-affirmation and the development of one’s vital forces.
And, on the contrary, humiliation programs his self-doubt (“If mom scolds, it means I’m worthless, I’m worthless!”). Such a quality as uncertainty goes “in parallel” with the internal state of hyper-anxiety, decreased vitality, and a tendency to depression.
The transfer of a psychological project by a mother occurs through her creation for her child of a zone of freedom and opportunity or restrictions and prohibitions. Freedom (“Do what you want and think is necessary”) is the mother’s transmission of her trust to the child. And, as you know, you can trust a good, smart and strong person. It is this message that the child “reads” through the channels of the unconscious in communication with his mother.
The mother's agreement with the child's freedom is also recognition of his right to his own life. The mother conveys to the child something like this: “I live the way I was able to organize my life. But you can live your own way, the way you can make yourself and your life.” Here the mother assumes the psychological equality of herself and her child: “I am a man and live as I want. And you are a man and can live as you want.”
Assuming freedom for her child, the mother programs the need for him to rely on himself, on his own independence. It is at this moment that the child begins and develops the ability to be “himself” and build his own life according to his wishes. This attitude of a mother towards her child is extremely useful for him also in the sense of forming his psychophysiological system of self-control, self-regulation and reasonable self-discipline.
Restrictions, prohibitions and countless “don’ts” are a mother’s deep-seated distrust of her child, non-recognition of his right to equality with her. Restrictions and prohibitions slow down or completely block the successful development of the child’s self-regulation system, since they force him to constantly and tensely maintain a relationship with his mother (“What is possible and what is not?”).
This allows the mother to control and manage her child, because it is she (and only she!) who acts as the main prohibiting or permissive authority for him: the child relies on her and believes her, does not rely on himself and does not believe himself. In this case, the mother becomes an externalized, subjective “regulatory system” for the child, which he needs now and will need for a long time later. And in periods of sudden changes in society and crises, he will need it all his life.
The transfer of the project also occurs through the improvement or disability of the child. Despite the fact that this unit of communication between mother and child concerns, first of all, his physical health, the psychological “lining” of his self-confidence or self-doubt arises here, the formation of his idea of himself as a person capable or unable to protect himself.
Health improvement is often expressed in this way: “You can walk through puddles, just make sure that the water does not reach the edge of your boots,” “You can walk without a hat, but when it gets really cold, put on a hood.” You can notice that gradually, in the second part of her address, the mother shows her child that he can protect himself (“... make sure that the water does not flood the edges of the boots,” “... put on the hood”). It is important to emphasize that the mother here relies on the child’s activity and programs this activity: “Act, defend yourself!”
Disability is expressed in the fact that the mother evaluates the child himself as incapable of self-defense in advance: “You are so pale, are you sick?”, “You are weak, rest, I will do it myself.” Please note: “Pale - ill”, “Weak - rest”. This is the mother’s programming of her child’s passivity, his inability to defend himself. As we have already said, such programming is often carried out by the mother unconsciously; she really wants to protect her child, cover him with herself, protect him from everything, including illness. At this moment there is a solution to the maternal formula, widespread in our culture: “A mother wants only good for her child.”
Unfortunately, such a mother does not take into account that it is simply impossible to protect her child “always and from everything”: a child can only protect himself from the adverse effects of the external environment himself, through his own activity and through his own actions. Therefore, a reasonable maternal formula should sound something like this: “I will teach you to defend yourself so that you can defend yourself, without me.”
Psychological design extends not only to the area of interaction between mother and child, but also to his social status, position among friends and peers,
in relationships with people. I am referring to situations in which a mother makes positive or negative comparisons between her child and other children.
In the first case, she positively singles out her child: “You do the best,” “You are the most beautiful for me.” In the case of a negative comparison, the mother makes a choice in favor of other children: “Everyone is a child, like a child, only you are the only one I have who is so abnormal,” “Look how smart Lena is! Everything works out for her: she studies better than anyone, is well-mannered and neat.” And I have you - I don’t know what... "
In the positive and negative comparison of the mother of her child with other children, the projection mechanism is manifested: if the mother is a confident person, then, as a rule, she praises her child and positively distinguishes him from other children. If a mother is an insecure person who feels worse than other people in some way, she will treat her child the same way, passing on her own insecurity to him.
Psychological project conveyed by the mother. You can often hear: “A mother always wants only good things for her child” and “A mother will never advise bad things.” But the transfer of a negative project really happens - that’s a fact! Let's figure out what the mother is trying to convey and why she consciously or unconsciously “chooses” negative methods of transmission.
First, let's answer the question: “What?” In our culture, parents want their child: “to be a good, decent person”; "was honest"; "I studied well"; “was smart” (usually this means: “remembered the educational material well”); “brought the matter to completion,” etc.
In addition, often a mother wants her child to be able to do something that she herself could not do, or achieve something that she herself could not achieve. For example, if a mother had musical abilities, but due to certain life circumstances she was unable to learn music, she strives to send her child to a music school and expects success from him.
The mother can express her wishes not only regarding the child’s activities, but also the level of his aspirations and desire for success, the desire to have a certain social status, communicate in a certain circle, and stand at a certain level of the social hierarchy.
Thus, the mother wants the child to internalize cultural norms of internal life and external behavior. Of course, positive norms.
Now let's answer the question: "Why?"
Why, despite her desire to make her child good and smart, does the mother still carry out negative projection? There are several reasons here; let us first dwell on those that determine the mother’s conscious choice of negative influences on her child.
First: her parents, in particular her mother, treated her the same way, and, having no other experience, she believes that with a child “you need to be strict,” “keep him under control,” and “he needs to be scolded, not praised.” " ("If I praise you, the egoist will grow").
Second: if the child is a son, externally and internally similar to his father, from whom the mother divorced, the negative projection can be conscious and quite intense. The woman has experienced a life drama, is offended, and her son resembles her ex-husband. She consciously wants him to “not become like his father was” and makes efforts to ensure that this does not happen.
Third: the mother is fast and active, but her child is slow and inhibited. When interacting with him, she often experiences irritation:
“Well, come on faster!”, “You’re always busy, because of you I don’t have time to do anything!” She tries to “remake” the child’s temperament, constantly pushing him, because she believes that “he won’t be able to do anything in life.” .
The unconscious choice of negative projection methods is most often associated with a woman’s general dissatisfaction with a difficult life. And this kind of dissatisfaction, which is now a fairly common occurrence, is “dumped” on the child (“I feel bad, everything around me is bad, and you are bad, unsuccessful”).
Quite often, a mother yells at her child and scolds him due to chronic fatigue, nervous exhaustion or lack of time to explain her demands: “I said it, that’s all!”, “Do as I said, and don’t argue!”, “Put away your toys.” , you always scatter, you can’t do anything yourself!”
If a husband suppresses his wife, she, in turn, can unconsciously suppress her child, involuntarily revealing her difficult internal state in her interaction with him and transferring to communication with the child the style of relationship that her husband implements with her.
The child’s attitude to the mother’s psychological project and the methods of its transmission. You should not think that a mother’s attitude towards her child should always be positive and benign. “Whether the mother’s negative project regarding the formation of a strong, autonomous son and a free, self-confident daughter will work or, conversely, will make them over-dependent social “cripples,” largely depends on the “radiation dose” and the degree of activity of the mother, as well as on the strength and activity of the child himself.
In the “force field” of overcriticism and overcontrol, a potentially weak child actually becomes “erased,” passive and submissive, as if giving his life and himself to his mother. A strong child will fight for the opportunity to independently build himself and his life, overcoming his mother’s attitudes, and, having matured, leaves her.
A weak child can also leave his mother, asserting his adulthood and desire to “live his own life.” But often such care is associated not so much with internal development as with finding a strong partner and accepting this leadership instead of the mother’s leadership.
However, both strong and weak children, within their consciousness, in the hidden “depths” of their psyche, can reject themselves. But if the weak often resign themselves to this, the strong either build a rational defense program at the level of mind and duty (“I must be strong and independent”), or in turn themselves become over-critical and over-controlling parents for their children. Let us note in passing that authoritarian, dominant and tough leaders are, in the overwhelming majority of cases, the sons and daughters of authoritarian and domineering mothers.
There is another, rarer “option” for a child to overcome a negative maternal project: escape from reality into the symbolic world of creative self-expression. If in real life, in interaction with the mother there is complete dependence, control and prohibitions, then a talented person consciously or unconsciously seeks an area of activity in which he would feel free and significant. Such an area can be artistic or musical creativity, scientific work, writing and other types of activity in which one can freely express one’s individuality and which are not available for controlling actions on the part of the mother.
Contradictions in the psychological design of the mother. Mother's negative projection is a test for
a child, which he can still experience constructively, strengthening his individuality or expressing himself in creativity. More serious difficulties arise for the child when the mother behaves with him in a contradictory, ambiguous way. This is often expressed in the fact that in statements addressed to the child, she expresses a positive attitude towards him, and in her actions and deeds - a negative one.
So, a mother can talk to her child for as long and eloquently as she likes about her maternal love and how good he is, but her eyes will be cold and distant, and her voice will be alienated and devoid of warm, loving intonations. She can instill in him the idea that “She is a mother and wants only the best for him,” but in reality, in her actions she will be guided only by her own goals, neglecting the goals of the child. As a result, a contradiction arises between the positive content that is spoken by the mother and which the child hears and understands, and the negative general atmosphere of the relationship, as well as the expression of the mother’s face and the sound of her voice, which the child sees and hears. The child can also feel the contradiction and discrepancy between the spoken and demonstrated content when observing the actions and actions of the mother. When doing something, she says: “You need this,” but in reality he sees and understands that it is not he who needs it, but only she.
The inconsistency of a mother’s psychological projection can be expressed not only in the discrepancy between what is spoken and demonstrated in her attitude towards the child, but also in the instability of these relationships. Today my mother is calm and loving, she understands everything and forgives everything. And tomorrow mom is nervous, alienated, doesn’t want to understand or forgive anything. Such sudden changes in the mother’s mood and relationships are always unexpected for the child; he gets scared and, not understanding the reason, often blames himself for it (“I did something wrong and bad, so she stopped loving me”).
In this regard, we can talk about a situational and constant contradiction in the psychological design of the mother. We talked above about the form of the relationship between mother and child, in which she constantly shows inconsistency and ambiguity. The action of situationally contradictory psychological projection takes place only in certain situations that are overly significant and frustrating for the mother. In these cases, she loses her inner balance and becomes contradictory for the child. In other, more “calm” situations, it can manifest itself more clearly. Let me give you a specific example.
X In one family, it was customary for a ten-year-old daughter to be within her mother’s field of vision while walking in the courtyard of the house, and so that every time she looked out of the window, the mother could see her child. But one day, when evening came, the mother did not see the girl and began to look for her. The search yielded nothing, and the woman became seriously worried.
When it became completely dark, and she was already despairing of finding her daughter, a girl appeared in the depths of the yard, running towards her mother. She started playing with her friends and began to get ready to go home when it began to get dark. The girl rushed to her mother, trying to cuddle with her, because she herself experienced the fear of getting lost. In turn, the mother also stretched out her hands to her, but instead of affection and love, she suddenly began to loudly scold the girl for abandoning the agreement and leaving the yard of the house.
As you can see, in this case a situational contradiction arose between maternal love, the joy that the girl was found, and the mother’s desire to protect herself from worries. Such a mother really loves her child, but she has problems maintaining internal balance in
difficult, stressful situations, as well as in adequately expressing their own feelings regarding the safety of their child. As a result, instead of joy from meeting her mother, the daughter experienced bewilderment and, possibly, emotional shock from the splashing out of her mother’s irritation.
The child's attitude to the mother's contradictory psychological projection. The contradictory and ambiguous attitude of the mother towards the child significantly inhibits his personal development. Thus, there may be certain disturbances in the emergence and development of his internal image of the Self, as well as in the formation of his attitude towards himself. A child involved in a contradictory relationship with his mother subsequently does not find a place for himself between the definitions of himself: “What am I - good or bad? Smart or stupid? Strong or weak?” Internally, he strives to build a positive portrait of himself - good, smart and strong, but, not receiving support and reinforcement from his mother as the person most significant in this period of his life, he doubts his movement and stops, without fashioning out of himself anything concretely effective and concretely self-perceptible.
If we return to the topic of “psychological portrait”, which we touched upon at the beginning of the article, we can say that the child cannot fully accept the image that the mother offers him because of the ambiguity and contradictoriness of the means of influence implemented by the mother in relation to him. But he also cannot “draw” his portrait on his own, because he does not know what psychological “paints” - light and bright or dark and faded - to dip his “brush” into.
This contradiction is especially acute in relations with the mother for a teenager who is entering the period of formation of his personality. If at this age stage, with her contradictory attitude, consciously or unconsciously, the mother blocked the formation of his self-image, self-attitude and self-esteem, he may not build his personality and remain “nothing,” without an internal core, like an unshaped piece of plasticine, susceptible to any external influence.
During this period, in relations with his mother, the teenager rushes between the desire to have a close, trusting relationship with her and the fear of being misunderstood and humiliated by her. In the future, in his future life, without a stable image of the Self, he will also rush around in a vicious circle: strive for emotional intimacy in relationships with other significant people and experience fear of the possibility of having emotional intimacy with them. He will accept and at the same time reject himself, desire and at the same time fear his partner.
This internal contradiction, which can be defined as “desire-fear,” manifests itself most clearly in a young man’s son in relationships with girls. Perhaps less clearly and directly, but still present, such a contradiction is also visible in the girl who had an ambiguous relationship with her mother during childhood, adolescence and adolescence. With all the strength of their souls, both of them strive to love and be loved, but they can just as actively consciously or unconsciously avoid close and stable relationships, experiencing incomprehensible anxiety and inexplicable fear.
How does an adult, man or woman, behave when he or she has grown up under conditions of contradictory maternal influence?
Overdependence. Having failed to build their own image of themselves, a son or daughter, as you know, can stay with their mother and live with her all their lives. Wherein
consciously or unconsciously, the mother will tie them to herself, experiencing fear of loneliness and old age, especially if this is a woman who raised a child without a husband. Such children may make attempts to build their own lives and their own families, but these attempts are often unsuccessful, and they return “under the wing” of their mother.
Tying her son or daughter to herself, the mother is hypercritical of their love interests, always finding certain shortcomings in their chosen ones. By influencing her child, the mother gradually “tears” him away from his loved one, creating in him the illusion that “he (she) can find something better.”
As a result, the lonely son remains with his mother, forming a kind of married couple with her. Without physical incest, such a family is a case of psychological incest. We can say that such a mother, having not found a husband among adult men, raises herself a husband from her son.
Over-dependence on the mother can also be shown by a daughter who returns with a child to her mother after an unsuccessful marriage or who does not marry at all. In these cases, the mother gets the opportunity to organize a kind of family in which, instead of one child (daughter), she already has two children (a daughter and a grandson). She begins to take care of and control not only her daughter, but also her child.
When the daughter returns to the parental home after a divorce, the mother begins “life anew.” She again feels young and necessary, active and caring. But, unfortunately, this surge in the mother’s vitality is “fueled” by the daughter’s vital energy; the mother, as it were, takes away her life, again becoming the family leader. And it is not always clear why the daughter could not get along with her husband and was forced to divorce: because she was initially dependent on her mother, childish and not ready for an independent family life, or because the dominance and authoritarianism of the mother, who was in conflict with her son-in-law, did not allow the daughter to have a prosperous family?
Both the grandson and the granddaughter, who grew up in such conditions, may also not have a good personal life. This is due to the lack of real experience of full-fledged female-male, love and family relationships, in which a boy gets the opportunity to “read” forms of purely male behavior, and a girl - female. A young man raised in such an all-female family still has certain chances of organizing his own family, if only because in Russian conditions he has a fairly wide choice due to the numerical predominance of women over men. A girl from such a “three-story” female family, observing a lonely grandmother and mother, is practically doomed to loneliness. This phenomenon is popularly defined as the “crown of celibacy.”
Becoming lonely people, such grown-up children experience increased anxiety in front of the world, acutely feeling their own insecurity and vulnerability. They are tormented by fears, they are suspicious and suspicious, expecting from the people around them any unseemly actions towards themselves. Often such negative expectations are exaggerated and are not related to people’s actual attitude towards them. Fears and experiences of danger make them withdrawn, as if “withdrawn into themselves.” They strive to find protection from their mother, who, it seems to them, reliably, like a “wall,” closes them off from the aggressive and unpredictable outside world.
Addiction. If a child, a young man or a girl, who grew up with such a mother, nevertheless built his own family, it exhibits typical
cases of psychological difficulties. Thus, a son often remains dependent on his mother, physically being an adult, but psychologically an immature and infantile child. People usually call such a young man a mama's boy. If he married a girl who is soft, emotional and weak in character, the older woman (mother-in-law) will retain and even strengthen her influence over her son. He will be guided by her opinion, ask her advice, give her money, etc.
But more often than not, such a son chooses as his wife a woman who is strong and who conveys the maternal position in a love relationship in order to unknowingly end his relationship with his mother. In his family, he manifests himself contradictory and ambivalent: on the one hand, such men demand that they accept their male leadership, on the other hand, in reality they act dependent on their wife. As a result, the woman is forced to “play along” with her husband: pretend that he is the head of the family, but in reality make decisions, earn money, take care of family affairs, raise children, i.e. be a family leader.
Unconsciously still experiencing pressure from his mother, such a son can “dump” his irritation on his wife, striving with her to “complete” himself and become an adult and mature. Such a desire is often expressed in unjustified aggression towards his wife, a focus on personal self-affirmation, and even some male tyranny. The aggressiveness of such a dependent husband is often enhanced by the fact that subconsciously he feels a sense of guilt towards his mother for having to leave her for another woman - his wife.
There may be another solution to the problem - the husband’s conscious acceptance of his wife’s leadership. Often such men call their wife “mom,” but she does not necessarily have to be older than her husband. But families in which a woman is physically and psychologically older than her husband and in which she is the leader, and he unquestioningly obeys her, are built according to the type of parent-child relationship in which the husband acts as a kind of “son” of his wife.
Such families are stable and sustainable if the wife is an active, energetic woman, formed like an “older sister.” He strives to receive care, she strives to care. But families fall apart if next to an immature husband and child there is an equally immature wife and child. People call such daughters mama's daughters. The wife's infantilism is manifested in the fact that she maintains her dependence on her mother, who begins to lead in the family of young spouses: making decisions, distributing money, raising grandchildren as her own children, and so on.
If a young husband strives for independence, he will fight for his family, conflict with his mother-in-law and strive to “tear” his wife away from her mother. In case of success, the family will survive; in case of failure, the husband leaves, and the daughter and children remain with the mother.
Who is guilty? Looking at the sad personal stories of lonely people, you often wonder: who is to blame - mother, son or daughter? Professional experience shows that this typically Russian question can be answered this way: everyone is to blame - both mother and children.
The head of a family in which her partners are a son or daughter, she acquires the illusion that she is living a family life.
Therefore, the mother makes two mistakes in life. The first mistake is that she does not know how to overcome the style of relationships she has acquired, not understanding and feeling that the single-parent family in which she grew up is, rather, not the rule, but a sad exception. A mother who lives by repeating the experience learned in her parental family usually thinks like this: “My mother was a single woman and raised me without a father. And my son (daughter) will live alone.” For comparison, here is the logic of reasoning of a mother who seeks to overcome the stereotype of dysfunctional relationships in which she was raised: “My mother was a single woman and raised me without a father. And I will be happy if my son (my daughter) has a family.”
The mother’s second mistake is that she was unable to “set free” her child, son or daughter, at the age when they needed it. This is primarily adolescence, when a child goes through the path of personal maturation, as well as the period of adolescence when a son or daughter begins to develop their own love affairs.
Thus, during adolescence, the mother must necessarily recognize the autonomy and independence of her child, despite the fact that she may experience difficult and painful experiences. At this time, mothers usually say this: “He has completely stopped obeying. He does everything in his own way!” The mother speaks of the desire for independence that she observes in her child as something bad that needs to be “nipped in the bud,” although in fact In fact, every teenager wants to be independent and independent, since such aspiration is the main vital task of his age development. If a child does not pass this period successfully, he may remain dependent and infantile for the rest of his life.
When a son or daughter develops their first love affections, the mother usually says this: “She gave him her whole life, and he, ungrateful, only thinks about her!” (“She gave her her whole life, and she, ungrateful, only thinks about him !”) or: “And what did he find in her!?” (“And what did she find in him?!”). During this period, the mother does not take into account the life tasks of her son and daughter, who begin to go through the happy and at the same time difficult path of mastering the roles of a man and a woman, in the future, respectively, a father and a mother.
One cannot be one-sided, blaming everything only on the mother, who in her motherhood is looking for a way to escape loneliness. Of course, this search for a mother carries with it the traits of inertia, inability to be creative in life and maternal egoism, but the relationship between the two is always two-way, both participants “contribute” to their content: both the mother and the child. It is quite justified to talk about the child’s guilt here.
A son or daughter entering adolescence and adolescence can be blamed for not fighting for themselves, for their growing up and for their independent life. In a sense, they take advantage of the mother, her vitality and experience, experiencing fear of growing up. After all, becoming an adult means taking on obligations, learning social norms and prohibitions, accepting the duty of love, motherhood or fatherhood. This is all hard daily work, performed not so much at will and in accordance with the principle of pleasure, but rather out of a sense of duty and in accordance with the principle of what is objectively necessary.
Thus, a teenager striving for independence and independence must learn to communicate, understand
people, set their own goals and strive to achieve them. In addition, the teenager must understand himself, “draw” his individual psychological portrait, form his inner image of himself. Solving these life problems is difficult, but necessary.
A boy or girl entering into a love relationship must gain experience of caring for another person, forgiveness and self-sacrifice. At the birth of a child, they must learn not so much to take, but to give - themselves, their strength, energy and life time - to a small creature. Obviously, it is incredibly difficult to do this physically and psychologically, and the ever-present temptation to hide from life’s problems “under the mother’s wing” is very great.
The guilt of a son or daughter who has not become a true adult can be briefly formulated as follows: refusal of life’s work and making a choice towards an easier path in life, free from obligations, debt and self-sacrifice, building one’s life according to the principle “I want and give.”
Despite the fact that outwardly such adult children live a simpler and easier life, without burdening themselves with worries and expenses, they “pay” for this incredibly dearly - by abandoning their own future. Indeed, sooner or later the mother will complete her life’s journey and leave her grown son (or grown daughter), and the latter will face an empty house and a lonely old age.
Alas, sad fate!
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Received by the editors on October 5, 1999.
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