MARGARET MAHLER: A Biography of the Psychoanalyst [Paperback]

Alma Halbert Bond (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2008 | ISBN-10: 0786433558 | ISBN-13: 978-0786433551

Margaret Mahler was from a young age intrigued by the theories of Sigmund Freud and Hungarian psychoanalysts such as Sandor Ferenzci, with whom she became acquainted while a student in Budapest. Forced to flee Europe and rising anti-Semitism, Margaret and her husband, Paul, came to the United States in 1938. It was after this move that Mahler performed her most significant research and developed concepts such as the ground-breaking theory of separation-individuation, an idea which was given credence by Mahler's own relationship with her father. This volume details the life and work of Margaret Mahler focusing on her life's ambition--her psychoanalytical work. Her experiences with the Philadelphia Institute and her definitive research through the Masters Children's Clinic are also discussed.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Alma Halbert Bond is also the author of 13 other books, both nonfiction and fiction. She lives in New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 239 pages
• Publisher: McFarland (July 15, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786433558
• ISBN-13: 978-0786433551
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,608,593 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Margaret S. Mahler - Larger then Life, September 11, 2008

By 

Kathi Stringer (Kathi's Mental Health Review) - See all my reviews

This review is from: MARGARET MAHLER: A Biography of the Psychoanalyst (Paperback)

To the outside world, Mahler was a gifted researcher and analyst who had authored many groundbreaking papers and books that revolutionized how we view child development. Her insight was heralded as the golden key to understanding child pathology. Many of us came to love Mahler through her innovative work and her words. And now, after decades of research, author Bond (who worked for Mahler) has given us a look of the woman behind the mask.

As Bond's lens focuses on Mahler, we begin to see into the dark depths of this complex woman. We are exposed to her quick temper and intolerance of anything less then perfection. She was a woman on a mission. We discover there were myriad conflicting interviews and memos--many hated her, but many loved her, as well. And all the while, whether they loved her or hated her; they surrounded her and basked in her status as a "living legend."

It is said, "Eyes are the mirror of the soul." Bond relates how in infancy Mahler had the ability to stare down her wet-nurse with the eyes of a lynx so she would continue to cradle her. A lynx has the ability "to immediately tell truth from error," according to author Bond. The infant Mahler was born equipped with the observation tools she needed to fulfill her destiny.

Bond begins with Mahler's birth in Hungary and parallels her life with the relentless advancement of Hitler's war machine. Her mother was only a teenager when she became faced with the pregnancy of an unwanted child. Years later, her mother gave birth to another daughter, whom her mother favored. To emotionally survive, Mahler became attached to her father, and she idealized and emulated him on an intellectual level.

We see how Mahler overcame early academia hurdles at a time when girls were not allowed in high school. But in typical Mahler fashion, she found a way. She left home, completed her studies, became a medical student and earned her diploma. Later in analysis, her bungling analyst rejected her and said she could not analyze her, which was a requirement in Malher's profession. It nearly cost her a place in the coveted Vienna analytic community. Mahler had shared her all only to be horribly rejected. This seemed to be another piece of Mahler's life that impacted the formation of her developmental concepts

As Hitler unleashes his storm troopers, Mahler escapes with only the clothes on her back, leaving her family behind in peril.

Far away in America, Mahler eventually secures grants to begin her research and her conceptualization of the pre-Oedipal phase, namely "symbiosis," the four sub-phases of "separation-individuation," and then "on to object constancy." These developmental blueprints emerged from years of research done by a team that observed mothers and their children. Theory formulation, of course, did not happen in a vacuum and the author makes clear that Mahler's concepts grew out of intellectual conversations with her colleagues. She didn't like to think alone and surrounded herself with professional peers and friends. Bond implies that this served as a sort of "trial symbiosis," a need that was unresolved from the relationship with her mother.

Bond illustrates for us how Mahler's arrested developmental framework from her childhood was perhaps the original template for her theories, which was reflected in her research. It was if she knew where she was headed all along - driven by instinct and insight from her own unfinished developmental business. Mahler seemed to oscillate between the symbiotic libidinal pull and the resolution of the rapprochement crisis. Bond sprinkles bright commentary throughout and correlates Mahler's own developmental snags and milestones to Mahler's theories.

The author brings us ringside to the embattled personal, brilliant, and complicated life of Mahler through photos, memos, interviews, data, her professional publications and more. She depicts Mahler much like a courageous explorer who discovers the world is indeed round and then, in certain elite professional circles, is snubbed for it.

To my surprise, author Bond includes a chapter on highlights from a film interview with Mahler as she candidly dispenses concerned advice to new mothers. Many of the questions directed at Mahler were challenging, e.g., in addressing the importance of the mother-infant dyad, she was asked, "What about mothers that have to work and are not available to their children all the time?" Good question, and as is well known, theories formulated within a nice tidy framework can often be impractical in actual application. The interview questions challenged Mahler, but she unfailing responded to the "what ifs" with clarity and an almost uncanny personal insight.

All in all, Bond shows us how the name of Margaret Mahler became bigger then one woman. Her theories seem infallible, unlike the woman behind them. It brings to mind a saying I recall: "Keep your heroes afar because if you get to know them, then you will find out they are really human after all." I think the Dr. Sam Vaknin said it best, "For she was Eve, no less, in the field of child psychology and therapy."
Kathi Stringer, author of the book "5150, The One Who Flew Into the Cuckoo's Nest"

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Mahler: The Eve of Child Psychology, August 18, 2008

By 

Sam Vaknin (Skopje, Macedonia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: MARGARET MAHLER: A Biography of the Psychoanalyst (Paperback)

This is the story of a child unloved by her mother, adored by her father, rejected by her peers, admired by her students, hated by her ostensible friends. A tough, no-nonsense European forced by the Nazi cataclysm into a tough and no-nonsense New World where she flourished and created one of the most insightful theoretical bodies of work in psychoanalysis. Never really a therapist, Mahler was at her best teaching and researching.

On the surface, the book is merely a recounting of her times, life, and work. But, it is much more than that. It is a fascinating study of the founts of creativity and of the inevitable and agonizing interaction between one's inner dynamics and outer circumstances and one's output and art. For, Mahler was an artist whose raw materials were her observations of mothers and children in the wilds of her itinerant laboratories.

The book delicately and empathically - but never sycophantly - traces Mahler's battle against a legion of inner demons (her "Repetition Compulsion"). She was a tortured soul who sought to alleviate her torment by deciphering and deconstructing the mechanics and dynamics of early infancy. Motherhood looms large in this barren woman's work as do love (of which she was consistently deprived) and freedom. Her lasting theoretical contributions, the Separation-Individuation subphases, and the scores of child therapists she had trained over the years are her true offspring. She never felt a real woman. Well, she was wrong. For she was Eve, no less, in the field of child psychology and therapy. Sam Vaknin, author of "Malignant Self-love: Narcissism Revisited".

5.0 out of 5 stars Delicious Insight, September 3, 2009

By 

Tina B. Tessina "Dr. Romance" (Long Beach, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: MARGARET MAHLER: A Biography of the Psychoanalyst (Paperback)

MARGARET MAHLER: A Biography of the Psychoanalyst It's absolutely delicious to experience a psychoanalyst's analysis of a world renowned pioneer in psychoanalysis. Dr. Bond explores the depths of the strong, yet troubled woman inside of the great Dr. Margaret Mahler. The book traces Mahler's history, from her childhood experiences of profound rejection by her mother, through her struggles as a woman to become recognized in the all-male world of psychoanalysis she encounters. As a counselor in private practice, I found the book fascinating. As a woman, who occasionally encounters male domination, I found it stirring and encouraging. As a reader, I found it enthralling. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys reading about women who made it against the odds.