A Brief Overview of Margaret Mahler’s Theory of Separation-Individuation: What It means to Educational Therapists, Early Interventionists & Early Childhood Educators

This article offers a brief exploratory examination of Margaret Mahler’s theory of separation-individuation, which targets at the development of young children between birth and 4 years, focusing on two key aspects, i.e., separation and individuation. Within the dynamic context of separation-individuation during that period, the four developmental stages – differentiation, practicing, rapprochement, and consolidation – are being reiterated by the author over and over again throughout this paper to highlight their importance. It is from this developmental substage of separation-individuation that a young child’s personality evolves over the next few years to shape him/her into what the child’s self eventually becomes. When applying Mahler’s separation-individuation theory in the context of working with young children identified or diagnosed with special needs, the condition of what is termed as ‘borderline phenomena’ comes into the picture. In this paper, the authors examine how separation-individuation is viewed differently from the perspectives of three groups of professionals, i.e., educational therapists, early interventionists and early childhood educators, especially when they have to work with young children with special needs.