Mirror-role of mother and family in child development 1

Abstract

In individual emotional development the precursor of the mirror is the mother’s face. I wish to refer to the normal aspect of this and also to its psychopathology. Jacques Lacan’s paper ‘Le Stade du Miroir’ (1949) has certainly influenced me. He refers to the use of the mirror in each individual’s ego development. However, Lacan does not think of the mirror in terms of the mother’s face in the way that I wish to do here. I refer only to infants who have sight. The wider application of the idea to cover infants with poor sight or no sight must be left over till the main theme is stated. The bare statement is this: in the early stages of the emotional development of the human infant a vital part is played by the environment which is in fact not yet separated off from the infant by the infant. Gradually the separating-off of the not-me from the me takes place, and the pace varies according to the infant and according to the environment. The major changes take place in the separating-out of the mother as an objectively perceived environmental feature. If no one person is there to be mother the infant’s developmental task is infinitely complicated.