Introduction
Winnicott (1960) famously wrote, âThere is no such thing as a baby.â That is to say that babies and mothers should be perceived as a unit, especially at the beginning of life, as you cannot expect babies to thrive without their mothers. I think of Winnicottâs statement as the first half of a paradox. The second half is: Anyone can see that there are a mother and an infant who are separate beings. Without the second half of the paradox, the mother and the infant are one, and no development can occur (Ogden, 1994, p. 4). Winnicott elaborated on the issue of the crucial significance of the infant receiving maternal care in numerous articles. One of Winnicottâs (1963a) most significant contributions to traditional psychoanalysis is his emphasis on the âexternal factor,â i.e., the significance of the actual external environment (the mother) who is responsible for making active adaptation to the babyâs needs (1963, p. 340). This âexternal factorâ is so significant to the infantâs well-being that early traumatic separations can lead to physical illness. Moreover, this awareness of total dependency and vulnerability on the babyâs part may be experienced as so threatening and potentially annihilating that the baby may feel the need to defend him- or herself by experiencing (unconscious) âdeath wishesâ that may serve the babyâs need to feel in control.
Although Winnicott alternates between the concepts of âmotherâ (1958 [1965, p. 37]) and âmaternal figureâ (1965, pp. 9, 34), he does seem to suggest that these concepts are not the same (1958 [1965, p. 34]) in terms of their significance to the babyâs psychic welfare. In his paper âThe Theory of ParentâInfant Relationship,â Winnicott clearly states:
The mental health of the individual, in the sense of freedom from psychosis or liability to psychosis (schizophrenia), is laid down by this maternal care, which when it goes well is scarcely noticed, and is a continuation of the psychological provision that characterizes the prenatal state.
(1960, p. 49, italics added)
This seems to be a significant recognition and suggestion of the possible differences between âmaternal careâ and the care of a âmaternal figureâ; by referring to the prenatal state, there can be no mistaking the significance and particularity that Winnicott attributes to the biological mother. Referring to a âbiologicalâ quality of mothering does raise questions, but taking into account Winnicottâs theory of the psyche-soma (1949/1975), we should be willing to examine that there is, indeed, a significant impact of the biological motherâs soma on the development of the babyâs psyche.
Following Winnicottâs (1949/1975) and Bionâs (1962a) ideas, I am suggesting that the interactions between âpsycheâ and âsomaâ are not merely intra-psychic (i.e., the babyâs psyche and soma) but also interpersonal (i.e., for example â the babyâs psyche and motherâs soma). As exciting and essential as this line of inquiry may be, I will focus on the long-term effects seen in adults who, as babies, did not have a âmother of their own,â not taking up the question of biological as compared with non-biological mothering2.
Winnicott (1963b) offers an explanation for the reluctance of âtraditionalâ psychoanalysis to examine and write about the environmental factor, but suggests that psychoanalysis was by then already established enough to be able âto afford to examine the external factor both bad and goodâ (p. 340). This issue of the measure of ârealnessâ (or accuracy) of the infantâs perception of his environment in an earlier paper (1960). In this paper, Winnicott addresses the similarities and differences between the patientâs infancy and his or her experience in analysis. He stresses that
The paradox is that what is good and bad in the infantâs environment is not, in fact, a projection, but despite this, it is necessary if the individual infant is to develop healthily, that everything shall seem to him to be a projection.
(p. 567)
Here, Winnicott tackles another matter relevant to my thesis that the infantâs mother holds significance, emphasizing that this mother, who performs the needed childcare, is not merely a projective âmakeupâ on behalf of the baby. This could also be read as Winnicott making the point that the infantâs mother is unlike other maternal figures as far as the baby may be concerned. Yet, this is not to say that other care-givers should not support parents, but it is to say that there are âthingsâ which the infantâs biological mother can provide her baby that no other figure can. The fact that the mother has carried her baby physically during forty weeks of pregnancy cannot be devoid of meaning, psychically and physically, both for the mother and infant. By suggesting that the âmotherâ is not merely a projection of the infant that can be received and contained by âany figure,â I understand Winnicott to suggest that each mother has her unique way of taking care of her infant and that uniqueness holds significance to the infantâs emotional and psychic well-being. By addressing the motherâs preparation for her babyâs psychic holding during the last stages of her pregnancy, Winnicott (1963b, p. 340) makes a subtle, albeit significant, reference to the biological mothering as being of crucial importance to the motherâinfant relations.
I aim to address and re-evaluate some of the possible consequences of the unique mode of child-rearing that was the norm in Israeli kibbutzim at that time. I am suggesting that what the kibbutz infant and child were missing was âa mother of oneâs own.â These infants and children were subjected to multiple care-givers while the mothers (and fathers) had little or no influence on their childrenâs daily lives, and no âactive adaptationâ was allowed. Having said that, and in consistency with our psychoanalytic perspective regarding the complex interactions of nature and nurture, the influences of any particular upbringing are never identical, as Winnicott says it so well:
Infants come into being different according to whether the conditions are favorable or unfavorable. At the same time, conditions do not determine the infantâs potential. This is inherited, and it is legitimate to study this inherited potential of the individual as a separate issue, always provided that it is accepted that the inherited potential of an infant cannot become an infant unless linked to maternal care.
(Winnicott, 1960, p. 589, italics in original)
This is, in my eyes, a focal point in Winnicottâs theory of maternal care and the development of a healthy baby, as well as a focal point of my proposed thesis regarding the possible effects of growing up in a kibbutz. Babies raised by their own mothers experience a variety of difficulties in integrating their fantasies (internal reality) with their mothersâ external reality. The infantâmother unit is naturally exposed to various internal and external effects, influencing or influenced by both the infant and the mother. Following Fairbairnâs (1944, p. 110) conception of the impact of the infantâs inevitable traumatic experience deriving from his or her encounter with the limits of the motherâs capacity to love the child and to accept the babyâs love, Ogden (2010) further elaborates on the question that follows from this notion. He quotes Fairbairn (1940/1952, p. 13):
Does âfailure on the part of the mother to convince the child that she really loves him as a personâ reflect the motherâs failure to be convincing, or does it reflect the childâs failure/inability to be convinced, i.e., the childâs inability to love?
Ogden (2010) indicates that his response to this question, âleans in the direction of the former interpretation, but by no means, rules out the otherâ (p. 103). Ogden elaborates on this idea and states that
every infant or child accurately perceives the limits of the motherâs ability to love him: and, at the same time, every infant or child misinterprets inevitable privations as the motherâs lack of love for him. From this vantage point, Fairbairnâs conception of early psychic development should be considered a trauma theory. To some degree, each baby is traumatized by his realistic perception that he is fully dependent on a mother whose capacity to love him has passed a breaking point.
(p. 103)
Following Fairbairnâs concept of the limits of the motherâs love and Ogdenâs elaboration of this, I would like to suggest that what is valid for babies who are raised by their âown mothersâ has to be even more true for kibbutz babies who were deprived of having a âmother of their own.â By this, I refer to the unique, particular way of child-rearing in the kibbutz system, as will be described later.
I have come to understand that although each infant raised in the kibbutz system had a different mother, the lives of these individuals â on reaching adulthood â evidenced similar pathology in their capacity to form mature object-relationships. I do not think there is disagreement among analysts concerning the idea that experiences in infancy and early childhood influence oneâs subsequent life in fundamental and life-long ways. However, there is a dispute concerning measuring the motherâs degree of influence in terms of the quality and quantity of time she spends with her infant/child. I propose that these disputes are not only psychological but political as well. Positioning the infantâs own mother as the care-giver (for whom there is no other equivalent care-taker of the infant) may add further complexity to the decisions many women make regarding how to combine and prioritize motherhood and career. The idea that there may not be a genuine, good-enough substitute for the mother is something that I (as both a mother and someone who highly values her career) feel is vital to re-evaluate. How significant is the motherâs care, specifically in the early stages of the infantâs life? I chose to re-examine this turbulent issue by studying adult patients raised in the Israeli kibbutzâs unique system. Although they represent, in my eyes, an extreme case, I do think an in-depth re-examination of their upbringing and possible consequences can benefit us. My aim is in no way to blame mothers or to disapprove of mothers pursuing a career. Neither am I proposing that mothers (and parents generally) should not use the support of nannies, kindergartens, or any other child-rearing support systems. Instead, I aim to better understand how psychoanalysis can help patients with this type of kibbutz upbringing; a lack of consistently involved early maternal care, and multiple care-takers during daytime and none during the night had negative consequences.
I would like to consider Fairbairnâs concept of the âtantalizing objectâ (1944, p. 112) regarding the kibbutzâs mothers because of the unique way they were present in their infantsâ lives â the average kibbutz mother was not absent from her infantâs life. Still, neither was she able to actively adapt to the infantâs needs. The kibbutz infants and children were not âneglectedâ in how we have come to perceive and understand âneglect.â It can be said that they were provided with quite generous care, addressing all their basic needs. And yet, given the unique circumstances of their upbringing â mainly the fact that they spent 21 hours a day without their parents â they were most certainly deprived of what Winnicott (1949/1975) considers crucial: active adaptation on behalf of the infantâs mother. Fairbairnâs (1944, p. 112) term âtantalizingâ object refers to the infantâs splitting of the âunsatisfactoryâ (internal) mother-object. The infant internalizes (unconsciously identifies with) the unsatisfactory mother and then splits this object into (1) the tantalizing (internal) object, and (2) the rejecting (internal) object. Winnicott (1974) refers to what he describes as the âtantalizing motherâ in his paper âFear of Breakdownâ:
It is wrong to think of psychotic illness as a breakdown. It is a defense organization relative to a primitive agony. It is usually successful (except when the facilitating environment has been not deficient but tantalizing, perhaps the worst thing that can happen to a human baby).
(p. 104)
Since parents in the kibbutz had little âsayâ regarding their childrenâs upbringing and were physically separated from them, they were at a severe disadvantage in terms of being able to âholdâ and/or âcontainâ their childrenâs emotional distress (Ogden, 2004). In the absence of maternal consistent âholdingâââcontainingâââdreamingâ of the infantâs experiences, it can be reasonably assumed that this vacuum would be filled with internalizations of âbad objectsâ as a way of compensating and comforting oneself (Fairbairn, 1944). The infant/child may rely heavily on his or her internal object-relations with these internalizations of bad-tantalizing (i.e., seducingârejecting) internal objects. One of the splits the kibbutz infant experienced was between the loving object and the âauthoritativeâ one. Parents in the kibbutz had no authority over the rearing of their infant (it was the kibbutzâs management who had the final say on everything). Since their actualâphysical participation in their childrenâs life was minimal (amounting to three hours a day), the care-taker who was there to âhandleâ and âholdâ the infant and child was not the parent who loved her or him. This split is often evident in the analytic experience (transference and countertransference) with adult patients who grew up in the kibbutz, as I will illustrate and, I propose, is closely related to the actual lack of âunityâ between such infants and their mothers. Of motherâinfant unity, Winnicott (1960, p. 587) writes, âThe infant and the maternal care together form a unit,â which, from his perspective, is the most crucial component of the infantâs healthy development.