Theories of early psychological development

1. Theoretical constructs of psychological development have been rooted for much of the twentieth century in theories based on observations and studies of men. Theories designed to describe normal psychological development of men, thus, resulted in description of women’s development as aberrant or arrested.1 Theories designed to describe normal psychological development of men, thus, resulted in description of women’s development as aberrant or arrested. 2. While extensively debated over the decades, the works of Freud and Erickson remain, to this day, the underlying sets of assumptions about the earliest psychological development of infants and young children. These principles emphasize separation, autonomy and independence of the infant from the (mother) caretaker with evolution toward emphasis on generativity, the development of rules and universal principles. Pediatric and family medicine texts continue to offer these understandings as norms for early childhood development.2 3. Accepting that these constructs may be relevant for male infants and children, they leave behind female infants and children as problems that need explaining. As such, these theories often concluded that females were wanting, less evolved, and less capable of achieving the highest levels of development.1 4. In the 1970s, women psychologists and psychotherapists began to critique and expand upon ideas of early female psychological development. Rather than an approach that tended to see what it was not relative to male development, these theorists began to describe how the experience of attachment, separation, growth and individuation might be different for women. These ideas assumed femaleness as uniquely itself, rather than as “other.” Further, the truth that caretakers of infants and children were overwhelmingly female was bound to be relevant. Might not, these theorists argued, the experience of attachment and separation differ for male and female infants, particularly in light of the powerful gender identification that highlights caretakers and the cultures from which they come? These questions ultimately led to a theory of development that has relationship at its core. The experience of attachment, separation, growth and individuation might be different for women. Attachment is the norm. 5. This relational approach to developmental theory holds that being-in-relation is the core experience for female infants and children. In other words, attachment is the norm, particularly in light of the gendered caretaker (mother) from whom separation is not required. Given the sameness, or identification with, the mother caretaker, the process is more likely to be of relationship to rather than separation from. 6. By this formulation, ideas of empathy, relationship, connectedness and mutuality come to the forefront of the development process and remain there throughout a woman’s life,3 in contrast to ideas of separation, autonomy and independence. Thus, “relationship is seen as the basic goal of development: i.e. the deepening capacity for relationship and relational competence . . . other aspects of self (e.g. creativity, autonomy, assertion) develop within this primary context . . . There is no inherent need to disconnect or to sacrifice relationship for self development” (page 53).3 7. In adolescence, therefore, relational theory would describe a transformation in the pattern of the parent–child bond rather than a break in the bond. Adolescent identity formation is realized in individuated relationships in which differences are freely expressed within a basic context of connectedness.”4  8. Female adolescents traverse the complex terrain of individuation within the context of relatedness. They must forge new identities while remaining rooted in the mutuality of their families. The emphasis on friendships during this time does not necessarily imply a separation from the family of origin, but rather a new context in which to be individuated and broaden the range of their relationships.5 These are formidable challenges and important times for psychosocial assessment and care.

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