The Role of the Social Worker in Preventing Mother-Child Bond Disturbances

Extract

[...] Primary Maternal Preoccupation - Donald Winnicott (1956) What is the role of the social worker in the case of the absence of primary maternal preoccupation in the mother? This article is in line with the work of S. Freud (1905). But also with A. Freud (1958), who carried out this work in continuity with his father on the psycho-affective development of the child, clarifying and deepening the ideas of psychoanalysis. This work is part of a psychoanalytic perspective. They propose to explain the development of the child through intrapsychic conflicts during childhood that will be at the origin of the disorders observed in adults. [...]

[...] This disease would come from an identification of the mother with the infant from pregnancy. Winnicott, however, refers to adoptive mothers who, if they are sufficiently identified with the infant, can also fall ill and develop this primary maternal preoccupation. Finally, this primary maternal preoccupation in the mother-child relationship, which will be the basis of the child's ego development. The frustration allowing the child to differentiate from his mother is not effective in this primary period, it only intervenes afterwards. [...]

[...] It is important that the social worker be alongside the mother to help her and not have a dominant position. This position then allows a co-construction of knowledge and the mother-child bond. When the unconscious bond between the mother and her child does not form, the mother's education is therefore primary and urgent to create this mother-child dependency relationship that will allow the child's good development, and thus avoid the development of psychological disorders in adulthood. The social worker's role will be to educate the mother and make her 'sick' to use Winnicott's term, his function is to transmit. [...]

[...] The social worker acts in this case in prevention of a disturbance of the mother-child bond which, let us recall, according to Winnicott could be damaging for the child and his construction of the ego. It is essential for the social worker to focus on the mother's attitude, which will be the genesis of the mother-child bond. This, without guilt-tripping the mother but by accompanying her in this process. The early attitude of the mother will be able to predict the future mother-child relationship. This support from the social worker will enable the mother to develop educational skills, this support is symmetrical. [...]

[...] In the thinking developed by A. Freud, the mother-child attachment relationship is solely linked to the fact that the mother feeds the child, it is a purely biological and therefore innate relationship. We are talking here about the oral stage as described in psychoanalytic theory, there is no dissociation between the child and the mother, that is to say that the object of desire (the mother's breast) is not considered different from the infant, it is a whole. This conception of development is based on the child. [...]