Containment and differentiation: Notes on the observer's maternal and paternal function

Abstract

The author's attention focuses on the emotional aspects of the observer's learning experience, and in particular on the acquisition of what is described as respectively his maternal and paternal function. The first is related to the development of the observer's capacity to contain projections of primitive mental states, and the second to his increasing ability to differentiate by disentangling their origin. A crucial part of the maturational process which is set in train by infant observation is the encounter with the observer's own internal child. The growing capacity to distinguish external and internal emotional contents deepens his capacity to remain in the position of the third. Material from a young child observation introduces the author's thoughts about the observer's two-fold function.

Keywords:

• Maternal function
• paternal function
• containment
• differentiation
• internal child
• third position

Notes

A summarized version of this observation was published in Infant Observation, 1, 31–50 (1997).