The development of a sense of privacy

This chapter discusses privacy in terms of the experience of having made an intentional choice to disengage from another or others. It examines intentional choice to distinguish this type of disengagement from abandonment or defensive dissociation. The chapter summarizes some of the infant research concerning the active role taken by the infant in the infant–caregiver interaction as described by E. Tronick, B. Beebe and L. Lachmann, C. Trevarthen and S. Malloch, and L. Sander. It discusses the development of theory of mind, defined as the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and to others. The development of a sense of ‘privacy’ in children is difficult to describe, largely because the meaning of ‘privacy’ or ‘private’ is complicated. Whereas the ability to attribute mental states to others and oneself may play a role in one’s sense of mental privacy, another aspect of privacy is perhaps more important.