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| PROFESSIONAL ORIENTATION
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Symbiosis is a mutually beneficial more or less permanent exchange between two beings, zoologically between two schools of different species, or biologically between two members of the same species. For psychological systems, this metaphor describes a reciprocally favourable use of the other's functions between two individuals. The symbiotic period of the development of the child corresponds to a necessity for the child who has no means of feeding and protecting itself, nor meeting its basic stimulation and developmental needs. For the mother there appears to be no reciprocal benefit, but in fact she is affectively nourished by her child which fulfils a basic necessity of adult women.
Actually, symbiosis is best described by the persons as'being one, making one', having no distinction between thoughts, feelings, nor boundaries of the body. For the neonate, it is right at birth the creation of one psychic unit taking care of two bodies by a definite and specific transformation of both the child's and the mother's state, which is an instinctual necessity for both. This dual body psychic unit is necessary for the safety and needs of the child (biological, affective, and developmental with life lasting effects) and the transformation of the mother during the minutes following delivery produces exactly that capacity to fuse with her baby for a set time.
Symbiosis means two bodies and one psyche.
In fact, the postnatal symbiosis is a necessary extension of the symbiosis of the pregnancy, but with different characteristics, namely that the child is vitalised (in the sense described in the preceding section), therefore active, and the mother is automatically not only a biological giver but an affection giver. We could say that she also has become an active care giver from a passive nutrients giver. Shortly, many clients of therapy describe that state as'9 months outside womb after 9 months inside womb'.
Symbiosis is necessary and essential for the child owing to its prolonged impotence and incapacity of using the world for its basic needs. Therefore, it is necessary for him/her to build an extension he can command from innate drives to suit its needs. That organ is the mother's body moved directly by the baby's drive, as by telepathy (but without real'thoughts', babies do not think but just'want'). This is the reason for the transformation of the mother: she has to become an organ of the child and obey the child's psyche, not from submission but from innate adequate motion. The safety provided and ready immediate response to needs is similar to that of the womb and is in fact a prolongation of the inner womb and placenta condition into an external womb and external placenta. but the external womb is much more than the internal one: owing to the active state and continuous seeking of the adequate stimuli, the infant uses the mother's body, intentions, moods, emotions, wishes, etc. to shape its own psyche and develop. This process has sometimes been called'early identification with the mother' which here amounts to more or less a complete'introjection' or'incorporation' (to be modified later during other phases).
Symbiosis is an external womb for the child: a safe place for living and a milieu for experiencing the first steps of development.
The term'symbiosis' has been used by some psychoanalysts to mean'an adverse condition producing schizophrenia'. This follows from a misunderstanding or misuse of words: most lives of schizophrenics can be traced back to a prolonged period of'symbiosis' with the mother continuing long past the natural beneficial period and even to the present. Or to a phase of'symbiosis' readily shown to be detrimental to both mother and child. Those periods of infancy are not'symbiosis' but rather'parasitosis', a mutually detrimental relationship. We recall that all ethology studies show that symbiosis become detrimental when overdue, and that instinct has provided the mother and the child with strong mechanisms to end this state when time is done.
We call symbiosis the natural necessary period of merged psyches between mother and child beneficial for both. We call parasitosis the aberrant merging of the two psyches, either by overdue prolongation, or by mutually detrimental relationship.
As ethologists show, the postnatal symbiosis is created by very crude principles in all species. A psychic bond is formed right at birth by a trigger mechanism (called IRM) using a key imprint to start a program: the offspring will from then on be attached to its mother's body and drive her to suit its needs. She will also be attached and driven by its needs for some time. Additionally, she has absolute power over her offspring which will follow her blindly and submissively.
At the time we write, we found that for human babies the imprint key seems to be composite and made of:
|
1. |
warmth of the mother's body and arms tight round the baby |
= |
to be hugged |
|
2. |
heartbeat of the mother |
= |
safe signal |
|
3. |
tone of her voice |
= |
familiar surrounding |
The similarity with the womb properties is flagrant. the difference is that both partners are vitalised, active and seeking, in this new context.
The attraction for the body, the breast, and the place where the heartbeat is heard and felt is so imperious that it is unbelievable for those not having had this experience. The breast is sought with the utmost energy not for its milk but for the safety it brings. Milk is secondary. Sucking is secondary to safe contact and clinging to the breast.
Bonding is the imprint of IRM type creating the attachment necessary for the postnatal symbiotic program to initiate and run. The external key input is the breast and heartbeat of the mother. The critical period lasts a few hours right after delivery.[1]
The bonding program is fed by vitality. If vitality has not been turned on during labour, the bonding program is likely not to open and the child may not claim the breast nor the mother. Bonding brings safety, and safety is only got by bonding. Once this safe state is acquired, vitality will feed all the necessary drives and programs for the subsequent survival and development stages using the mother as an extension and as a main stimulation source.
We have found that the child has a strong urge to regain the feelings he had inside the womb: tenderness, warmth, holding and hugging, heartbeat (the sound of the mother's heart), and sucking. It is of utmost importance to let the neonate have these elements at once when out of the womb. Technical checks can wait until the fusion of mother and child has begun since otherwise they will interrupt a natural instinctual program of vital importance, especially for the symbiosis to initiate.
The mother also needs this struggling of the child on her breast to fully become a mother, and a host of reflex-like programs are setting on at this very time.
The stereotypies associated with the foetal state (automatic light movements, balancing), which persist in the autistic series case, normally disappear rapidly or even do not show after birth. Vitalisation seem to erase all types of automatic movements pertaining to the previous state, showing that a complete new set of programs have initiated.
During delivery and the following critical moments, the woman is also submitted to instinctual programs transforming herself into a symbiotic mother with the innate capacities necessary to meet all of the child's needs. Most of these programs are initiated then and are not mental sets which can be had by wishes or reason and operate at will. Bonding is not a thought but a reflex. Attachment has usually started during pregnancy on the sentiment and moral basis of expectation, and also from the sensations of the life in the womb, but bonding is triggered by the strong emotions of delivery which set on the urge to see, meet, and especially hold the child close, take him or her from her canal to her breast, and not let it away for no reason. Any inappropriate intrusion in this thread of reflexes may prevent the woman becoming a mother.
The woman also needs to live consciously and actively all the phases of labour and delivery to become the mother of that child. The result depends on her emotional ability.
The compulsion to take her baby and hold him or her to the breast and other associated care is regularly referred to as compelling. This type of motion and the subsequent aspects of symbiosis can not be produced by what is usually called'love' or'sentiment' or'reason', but only by transformation of the body state. Bonding is for one child only; having been the symbiotic mother of one does not guarantee that she will be for another one, and vice versa.
We have also reports from fathers who have bonded to their child, following a sort of emotional shock during the phase of delivery. It seems thus that a father program or a father state is obtained by the same procedure of emotional transformation during the few minutes of childbirth, with the initialisation of the protection program (unconditional protection of the mother and of the child). When that emotional transformation has not taken place, the father may remain touched but not bonded, distant, unprotective, indifferent, and even rejecting (the child and/or mother are then felt as burdens).
The man also needs to live closely and consciously the phases of labour and delivery to become a father. The result depends on his emotional ability.
When bonding does not occur during the critical period, while the imprinting window is open, the child immediately cries of pain and soon despairs if he/she is not held, and stops only from exhaustion. Then the baby starts various procedures to attract the mother and try bonding to her, then rapidly loses vitality (sign of psychic collapse). It usually tries repeatedly alarm programs using crying, shouting, shrieking, stirring, refusing milk, vomiting, and not sleeping. Not moving when the mother is close by is a sign of already broken psyche. This state is easily distinguished from the state of safe rest of the bonded neonate. That survival program may end quickly or last a few days depending on the amount of vitalisation gained. Then slowly begins a progressive sacrifice of functions to try and survive biologically at least, cutting feelings, sensations (loss of body), then vitality in order to diminish suffering and agony (loss of psychic life). If still left alone, he or she may stop feeding as an imperious alert, and also a pain alleviating procedure (anorexia), and if not taken care of promptly, he/she may stop breathing for incapacity to get over the suffering endured.
A fraction of stillborn children can be explained by lack of vitalising or untimely provoked delivery. Also an important fraction of sudden infant deaths stem from absence of bonding and imprinting immediately after delivery followed by isolation of the child or bad care. In many cases, this is due to faulty childbirth procedures which had impeded either the child or the mother or both to transform and start the adequate innate symbiotic program.
The outcomes for not bonded children may depend on the type of care he/she is submitted to after birth, but the prospects are generally dim. Reports from mothers having had both experiences (bonded and not bonded children) tell in therapy settings about conscious/unconscious rejection, urge to kill the child or get rid of it by some way, innumerable difficulties stemming from sentiments ranging from disinterest to resentment and irritation for the child at all ages, tendency to put the blame on the child since (owing to the lack of symbiosis) he/she usually proves to have a'difficult character' (he/she is in fact re-enacting repeatedly the trauma of childbirth). For short, in this case, there is a great likelihood of absence of symbiosis (indifference) or parasitosis (mutually destructive attachment).
The outcome for the mother may be also very painful, if not as lethal as for the child. Continuity is ruptured in the case of not having bonded, and the child she had in her womb is felt as lost, or dead. She is given another one who does not replace the one she had. Thence the so-called postpartum depression, loss depression (if the mother is sensitive to loss, which is often the case). Thence the reactions to that loss, which may be indifference and obvious rejection, or excess care and overprotection.
[For the mother who is not fit psychologically for bonding and symbiosis, the labour style is not so decisive since the result is invariably a rejection of the neonate. But for other mothers who are able or do not know what to expect, delivery will lead to bonding provided no one in the family or in the staff takes steps to prevent that natural process. A rough guess is that probably 80% of mothers may be able bond to their child if not prevented to do so.]
The symbiotic state thus created is a very rich environment for the child to
and progressively during the second phase of partial symbiosis
This symbiotic space[3] needs the constant presence of the mother for a few months, ranging from 6 to 12 months depending on the birth adventure, and her partial presence and interaction for about 2 to 3 years.
The mean breast feeding time in the world is around 2 years, with a heavy difference between the northern hemisphere (around 5 months in the mean, reduced to less than 1 months in some countries where the pressure for bottle feeding is very strong) and the southern hemisphere (around 23 months) due to the bias of industrialisation which reduces the incentive for breast feeding for production reasons.
Ethologists and psychoanalysts concord on the existence of two necessary subphases: one of unconditional positive response to all infant's needs (automatic, not from reason), and one of progressive ambivalent response to the insistence of the infant to try and prolong feeding and holding (repelling episodes, caring but with more distance and detachment). The second phase is necessary for separation and independence.
In structural theory we do not use the word'emotion' for all motions of the infant. Instead, we use the following constructs for the description of a three steps relation oriented function:
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reactions |
survival oriented |
basic needs (safety) |
imperious |
originary register |
innate, instinctual |
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emotions |
dual relation oriented |
interpersonal needs, desires (pleasure and distance) |
necessary |
primary register |
developed through distance and pleasure play with the mother |
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sentiment |
social life oriented |
collective needs, wishes, aspirations (self-development) |
important |
secondary register |
developed through peer relationships and by the passage transformation |
The second subphase of the symbiotic relationship, the ambivalent phase, corresponds to the building of the emotional function. This function allows to manage the distance with the other (contact seeking <-> repulsion) and the comfort of life (joy, pleasure <-> discomfort, pain), the model of which is the closeness and episodic appearance and disappearance of the mother. Training with this ambivalent mother leads to the final construction of a device permitting progressive periods of frustration and internal (covert) managing of the relationship with that other with a'will of her own': the function of imagining the future.
The emotional function is a body mechanism mainly directed at releasing tension by externalising a great amount of energy through powerful motion. It also corresponds to the creation of an inner entity called'the object', usable in the absence of the other (as the gestalt two chairs technique demonstrates). The'object' is at first an internalisation of the outer mother or other who does not comply to needs and will power. Later it becomes an imaginary partner who is needed to anticipate future episodes of relation.
Tensions build up from some kind of frustration: lack of contact, lack of reassuring presence, lack of compliance of the other to one's desires (ceasing to be a extension of one's body). The discomfort or even pain comes from the existence of a real other and lack of response to one's needs. When grown up, a similar frustration is attributed to an inner opponent which is an image of the former outer other, raises anger, a movement sufficient to expel the excess energy and relieve the pain (releases the tensions).
The two main functions of the emotional procedures are used to manage
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distance |
attraction ↔ repulsion |
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comfort |
joy ← pleasure ↔ displeasure → pain |
All the emotional spectrum is derived from the (vector) sum of those two components, and an intensity scale, as demonstrated by Plutchik, and especially by Woodworth and al.[4]
We distinguish anxiety (and its derivatives: expectation, surprise, fear) from these two components for convenience in discussing the psychic model. Anxiety is a one direction only tension: it scales from the complete absence of fear to terror and panic. Zero anxiety is equivalent to safety and relaxation. Any amount of desire or need produces expectation (at least) and the concern not to be able to fulfil the need. Anxiety is not specific to any register, but is greater the more archaic and basic the register and the drive. Anxiety can be associated (vector addition) to the two other variables (distance and comfort).
Following Bowlby and Ainsworth, there is a current trend of thoughts stating that 'attachment' is a complex faculty which can be developed during life, commencing at birth or even at conception, and consolidating during education by closeness, contact and interest.[5] It is described as building up slowly by reason, sentiment, and proximity, depending on the type of personality. In the scope of structural theory, 'bonding' is a reflex modification of the psyche triggered by specific sensations, and 'symbiosis' designate a definite state of the mother and a definite state of the child which are different from those described by attachment theory. This is also true for the father state. Ethologists have produced considerable evidence of how the imprinting and bonding reflexes function, and we have discovered, to our surprise at first in the late 80s, that exactly the same patterns occur in human life.[6]
Imprinting do not occur from reason, sentiment, learning, or training. Imprinting comes from innate programs which need external keys to run, independently of our mind sets. On the contrary, it is our mind sets which have to experience these states and integrate them into our psychic construction.
Adverse conditions for imprinting produce the most severe disorders for the child (psychotic structuring), and severe disorders for the mother and father, preventing them from transforming into the mother and father states needed for the safety and development of the child and their own parental satisfaction.
Therefore, we distinguish in structural psychology the concept of attachment as stated by attachment theory which is of the order of sentiment and behaviour and is a way of caring, and the experience of bonding (an innate imperious impulse) and symbiosis (a state of merging favourable to both mother and child) as definite events pertaining to the body and feeling realm to be integrated in a second step into one's conception of life.
When bonding has not taken place and the mother state has not been changed to that of the symbiosis, after the despair and imminent death period, the child has to live with the mother as she is, providing food and care (which in the baby's feelings is 'rejection') but not symbiotic response (which in the baby's feeling is 'attention' and 'love'). The baby lives with the loss of the symbiotic mother he or she needed at birth and adjusts to that 'foreign' person (not the mother of the lost womb or of the never come external womb). Whatever the sympathy of the mother for the child, she will be felt as a substitute, a foster mother.[7]
Not bonding is equivalent to an adoption for the child. The symbiotic mother is lost forever and he or she has to live with a substitute mother.
The unbonded mother bears an unconscious rejection for the child, a reflex shared by all mammals.
When the bonding program has not started, a reflex of destruction starts in its stead, the offspring is killed or abandoned. Human mothers usually repress this upsurge and may live the nursing with difficulties or with some excess to cover up the unwanted rejection feeling. Usually, mothers say they love their children, whatever the conditions, but it is for the child to say if he/she feels love from her or not (which is what is uncovered in archaic therapy).'Love' for the infant is equal to'symbiotic response' a state and body response, and not only'care' and'concern' which is a social response. When not bonded, the infant does not feel'love' and birth amounts to a catastrophe. The child having no other environment than the mother, she will be felt as the author of the tragedy even if other persons, assistants, or staff are responsible for the tragedy.
A substitute mother is detrimental to the child for want of the symbiotic response which is absolutely necessary during the first months for its safety and development. This deficiency is experienced by the child as 'rejection'. This feeling persists even in adult life since it is kept memorised in the body, and also from the unrelenting expectation of the symbiotic relationship. Anna Freud has well described the various types of rejection lived by the children.[8]
We call parasitosis (or defective or destructive or toxic 'symbiosis') the type of relationship occurring after not bonding and substitution of the womb by a not symbiotic mother.
The so-called'maternal instinct' is not an automatic trait of mothers: it is an IRM and necessitates an external trigger, that is a definite set of sensations and associated reactions to activate.
When unbonded, the child is usually felt as an excessive burden ('this child kills me') and the mother is felt as destructive ('she wants rid of me', which amounts to death during the postnatal period). The relationship is destructive on both sides. It is also very persistent, even long past the autonomy time, since on the child's side, the need for the symbiotic mother is still waiting and may be claimed to the mother, and on the mother's side, the need for the continuance of the womb child, the symbiotic infant, is still active and may be claimed to the growing child.
[1] Studies of bonding usually show a short critical period. However, the significant variable used is often the attachment for the child assessed by the"strange situation" months later or other measures not very reliable. Our own evaluation from reports of clients gives evidence that after one day left alone, the child has past the panic, despair and catastrophe stage, is already closed on itself and the process of regression to womb and/or cutting vitality has already begun.
[2] Margaret Mahler has put this construction as the centre of what we name here symbiosis (different of what she names symbiosis).
[3] called also sometimes by Lacanian psychoanalysts"metonymic space"
[4] Plutchik, R, Emotion: A Psychoevolutionary Synthesis, Harper & Row, New York, NY, USA, 1980; Woodworth, R. S. , Schlosberg , H., Experimental Psychology, Holt, New York, NY, USA, 1964, pp. 127-.
[5] Bowlby, John, Attachment and loss, Vol. I-III, Basic books, New York, NY, USA, 1980; Ainsworth, Mary D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., Wall, S., Patterns of Attachment. Hillsdale, NJ, USA, 1978; Goldberg, Susan, Attachment and Development, Arnold, London, GB, 2000.
[6] This comes from the fact that human life is built up from a few rudimentary instincts very well tested and proven in the animal realm. Cf. Lorenz, Konrad, Instinctive Behavior, Schiller, New York, NY, USA, 1957; Les fondements de l'éthologie, Flammarion, Paris, F, 1984.
[7] See the equivalent in the Myths of Psychosis section.
[8] Freud, Anna, L'enfant et la psychanalyse, Gallimard, Paris, F, 1976.
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