ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author attempts to show how the feelings evoked in the mother by a particular child influence the way in which the mother experiences her child during the early phases of the child’s development. She draws some inferences about the effect of the mother-child relationship during separation-individuation on the further development of the child, in particular on the child’s identity themes. Already before birth, the human infant exists not only in the body of the mother but also in the mind of both parents. Mothers vary in their ability to negotiate between their representations of their babies, as these originate from the mother’s own early experiences, and the actuality of their baby’s needs, as they are expressed in the here-and-now by each individual infant. In cases where the mother is intensely conflicted about her own femininity, a kind of projective identification with the daughter may occur.
