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Symbiosis is a general device used by all warm blood animals, including birds and mammals. The offspring is attached from birth on to the parent and the parent to the offspring by a purely psychic device (using an IRM program[1]) for a set time until its development is sufficient to live independently. The symbiotic period is generally total for a definite period (the parent cannot leave the child except for very short moments), then partial (alternation of periods of symbiotic state and periods of relative independence).
For human beings, when the child has reached a capacity and autonomy in the management of the"object", i.e. he can dispense with the presence of the mother without anxiety and imagine her certain return in the future without frustration, symbiosis has to end (on both sides) and be replaced by another type of relationship so that new programs of exploration (of the environment), training (mainly the sensory-motor ability development), and relating with others (with a combination of emotions and language) can run.
The symbiotic relation with the mother is exclusive, dual, fusion-like, mostly instinctual, primitive and telepathic (non-verbal), and is poorly adapted to more complex interpersonal relationship. The development of less instinctual and more emotional and verbal relationship is needed. The child has to learn to cope with variable distance with the other, ranging from complete absence to closeness and intense relation (attraction and rejection). It also has to cope with deprivation, frustration of desires and subsequent anxiety, and with pleasure and play with peers to initiate and develop various faculties (functions).
With mammals which are more simple than man, it is much easier to observe the periods of complete symbiosis, partial symbiosis, and the progressive development of independence. To get a roughly unbiased information, we also have to take into account the influence of the seldom discussed procedures of our society on childbirth and childrearing. Since the society has an economical and political interest on the maintenance of certain types of childbirth and early care, its influence cannot be eliminated of any valid study.[2]
We can use the well known studies on rhesus monkeys by Harry F. Harlow as an example, but we have to account for the fact that imprisoned monkeys do not behave as free monkeys in the wild.[3] But for our purpose here, the partial findings do not vary considerably with free monkeys. Harlow has evaluated a"protection index" and a"punishment index" on mothers during the feeding period (by observation of units of behaviour) with time. Up to the age of 75 days there are mostly only protection actions and after 75 days only punishment actions. That is to say: at a definite time, the mother ceases to be unconditionally protective and starts to be pressing the child out of her range. We have found the same pattern in many tribes: at a certain age, the shaman or chief takes the child from the mother, thus ending the symbiotic period, and place it in a group of peers to play at distance.
In the case of monkeys, it seems that the mother has instinctively the drive to push the child away when the age comes. In the case of human mothers, it is more complex. A factor that is often omitted is that separation is usually easy for the mother when bonding and symbiosis has taken place, since the mother is sufficiently satisfied and fulfilled with her child, and seeking outside satisfactions. It is obvious that in the monkey studies, this is the case although this variable is not mentioned. When bonding has not happened, the aberrant symbiosis that has usually taken place in its stead (except in the case of indifference of the part of the mother) is much more difficult to dissolve since that state has not fulfilled the mother and she is still waiting for the bonding reflex to take her and for the symbiotic baby to come. This absence creates a powerful demand and makes separation a pain. The same is true of the child who is still waiting for the bonding body to come.
Women may have the instinctual drive to repel the child at the necessary age as mother monkeys have, but an important number of occidental mothers do not benefit from bonding and symbiosis and therefore cling to the child for want of a natural early satisfaction after childbirth. So far, we have not heard of studies of separation taking into account bonding/not bonding as a variable. For us, this variable is however the most important parameter (after vitality onset) in longitudinal or transversal studies of children and mothers.
Human mothers, when having bonded and lived a satisfying symbiosis with the child tend to separate on their own account. However, it seems that others factors, sexual activity, social necessities and interest (work, integration), and external pressures influence her and play a determinant role.
When symbiosis, either beneficial or detrimental, does not dissolve, problems occur. On the child's side, the presence of the mother even when non-aggressive is regularly felt as intrusive, suffocating, overwhelming, and preventing freedom and growth.
Even good baby care is lived as suffocating when the time is over.
Symbiotic care is not adapted to the child's needs when time is due to explore the world and play with peers to develop. Efforts and attitudes at variance with its present needs are useless and detrimental even if seemingly "good", "sweet", "tender", etc. Mothers who go on figuring their child as a baby feed their own satisfaction to the detriment of the child even when nothing seems abnormal.
Parasitosis is usually difficult to dissolve without the aid of external agents or procedures since deep deficiencies of instinctual functions have been crystallised, in both child and mother, which creates in turn a strong need for the other although his/her presence cannot fulfil that need. We call this system an aberrant bond.
The child's needs are ambivalent during the whole period of dissolution of symbiosis (from the end of complete symbiosis to complete independency).
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repulsive |
attractive |
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need for exploration and freedom |
need for reassurance and contact |
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need to get rid of the presence of the mother |
occasional need for regression and temporary fusion |
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attraction towards others: peers, father, local group |
attachment to mother's body |
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attraction towards the environment |
fear of the unknown |
Similarly, the mother has an ambivalent response to the child's demands. At a certain point, it seems that when the symbiosis has been adequately lived on both sides, the mother unambiguously repels the demanding child after a certain point, but remains a source of comfort and safety during childhood when it is needed. It is noteworthy that in the monkey studies cited above, the reversal from"protection" to"punishment" is rather quick. But the growth of a monkey is much more rapid than a human child who therefore needs more occasional protection than the former. Since the human infant, contrary to the monkey infant, is not complete and autonomous after weaning, there must be a period of both protection and (only) relative independence for its development to forward. This period is not observed in other mammals or is very short.
The social needs (integration in the group, work, gaining esteem) of the mother and her sexual needs (genital orgasm drive) are major factors in separating her from the child. Modern psychoanalysis tends to put forward the genital drive of the mother as the main factor producing separation. It is then called the"father" or the"effective father", or the"symbolic father". We think that the social drive is also very important in separating mother from child.
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repulsive |
attractive |
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need to get rid of the presence of the child |
attachment to the child |
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independence need |
need to appear as a good mother |
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social need to be needed by the local group |
fear of going back to social life |
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genital need (orgasm need) |
absence of genital need, contact with the infant felt sufficient |
Mothers having complex unresolved conflicts, structural defects, and/or lack of genital drive, may not be ready and find difficult to lose the contact with the child, or its more or less constant presence, even if this presence is a bother to her. In this case, her fear of loss or her fear of her reactions to loss (usually depression) are more powerful than the drive to meet her personal needs or the child's needs. Risks of prolongation of the symbiosis or parasitosis are then likely.
Here are some of the possible fears impeding the separation process (attractive) and some fears pushing the mother to leave the child in spite of her reluctance to do so (repulsive):
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repulsive |
attractive |
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fear of the father leaving her and/or going with other women |
fear of losing the child's nourishing presence |
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looking for outside compensation to personal difficulties |
fear of her reactions to the loss of the child's presence, like depression or aggressiveness |
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fear of losing material or affective safety with the consort if she clings to the child |
fear of the child escaping her control and influence |
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need for money and/or social esteem |
fear of boredom and incapacity to fulfil herself |
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attraction for men |
fear of sex and genital confrontation |
Incest is the result of not dissolved symbiosis or unresolved parasitosis. Cessi, from the verb secedo, means to separate from, to go away, to be separated. When not separated, the child is incestuously attached to the mother, an aberrant situation. This attachment is a need state which may be directed later to another parent, a lover, even a group or a drug, with adverse results.
This type of excessive attachment with a parent beyond the age of symbiosis is called Îdipus complex in psychoanalysis. It was placed around the age of 4-6 at the beginning of the century since it was readily observable in its consequences at that age. It was also thought to be a universal trend of human beings although not observed in other mammals. We now know that 1-this complex is a structure which is created at birth when bonding has not occurred; 2-that it is but a strict consequence of not bonding at birth, therefore not a universal natural trait, although common in the western world for social reasons; 3- the not bonding procedure stems either from the personal incapacity of the mother, or from the influence or power of the father, family members, or medical staff over her during pregnancy, labour, delivery and postnatal first hours.
All acts or attitudes impeding the bonding between mother and child at birth favours incest and the creation of an œdipus complex.
In the same way, the father is commonly the most menacing person towards the creation or the furtherance of symbiosis or parasitosis. Therefore, the child rears feelings of hate and destruction towards him as a natural reaction so as to try and maintain the dual fusion between him (her) and his (her) mother. That menace may be felt from the birth on, if the father or staff seeks to prevent bonding, or prevent the progress of symbiosis. The father may be jealous of the infant's fulfilment, of the mother's happiness, and may fear losing his affective consort or sexual partner. The murderous impulse may be felt right at birth if bonding is prevented by influence on the mother, or later when the time of an unwanted separation comes of age. This is of course more likely when parasitosis is the case, where the pain of the failure of symbiosis is greater. Conversely, when attempting to leave symbiosis, the child is much less attached to the mother and usually seeks the father's presence to help separating.
Individuals menacing bonding or symbiosis produce a raise of murderous impulses in the child which will later become hate towards all authority figures.
This mechanism is the root of the second part of the Œdipus complex, the so-called "impulse of murder of the father", which is but a reaction to the prevention of the bonding process, therefore not a universal trait of children but the strict consequence of a well defined act or attitude towards childbirth.
[1] A built in program necessitating an external trigger to run.
[2] This follows from the principle that no"scientific study" is free of economical and political issues. See Postmodern paradigm. It follows also from the theorem that it is an illegitimate operation to isolate a subsystem embedded in a larger system, without replacing the outer part by forces of interaction or flows of information.
[3] This follows a general rule of ethology, that constrained individuals do not behave or have psychic reactions similar to those having natural freedom. This is true of monkeys and humans as well. Harlow, Harry F., Learning to Love, Albion, New York, NY, USA, 1971.
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