Customer Reviews

Oneness and Separateness: From Infant to Individual

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book allows you to get to a place that all parents wish they could be, inside their childs thoughts. I now have more understanding and MUCH more patience. It is easy now to be compassionate instead of upset since so many of my questions have been answered regarding infants moods, thoughts, feelings, and behavior. It has not only given me a new perspective on childhood behavior, it has helped me to understand my own!

This book is wonderful. It explains and delineates the phases through which babies and toddlers go as they develop, using Margaret Mahler's theories, but making them accessible to the layperson. If you ever tried to read Mahler's "The Psychological Birth of the Infant", you know how scholarly and intellectually dense a work it is (I tried, but couldn't). Further, the loving and lyrical style makes it engaging and joyous to read. I wish that fathers (I am one, to a toddler girl) would read it, too.

After working as a child therapist for more than five years, I found this book extremely thoughtful and helpful in working with children. It is beautifully written and is followed up by Dr. Kaplan's book on adolesence!

I have read this book and then given it to every new mother who is close to my heart. I first found it at a La Leche League convention when my first baby was almost a year old. I would read a part of it, then look at her, watch her act, and interact with her environment and with me. Playing peek-a-boo after reading what's happening in her mind as it develops only made me want to help her develop it more! I wish Dr. Kaplan could write another and help me with that little baby who is now a teenager!

I have had plenty of mental health professionals tell me that Kaplan is out of date and somewhat obsolete. To some degree I can see this being true. Her writing clearly comes from an era where Mommy is THE caregiver and Dad must be off smoking cigars all day. Once I blocked out the rather single minded view of care giving that seemed to date the research to another era, it was an enjoyable read. Kaplan helps parents understand and empathize what your baby, who can't speak on their own, might be experiencing. I felt it gave me more patience because I could relate better to the frustration my son was sometimes exhibiting and it also gave some insight as to what he might need from me. Now I watch my son's crawling away and coming back to home base with a new appreciation and awe for the incredible developmental gains children have in those first years.

I have read some of Daniel Stern's more current work on infant psychology, but it didn't "speak" to me the way Kaplan does. This book is an easy read that doesn't feel too technical or to "out there".

This book is a fascinating work that follows the psychological well-being of infants in the first three years of life. Important understanding of mother-infant bonding, and a must-read for every new mom.

This book is an excellent distillation of Margaret Mahler's work on Separation/Individuation and every mother of a newborn will find it eye opening regarding the psychological development of her child. Easily understood by the non-professional.

As many other reviewers have stated, this is a helpful book. But I just wanted to note that it is very mom-focused. The author acts as if the bond with the mother is the only bond, and the father just happens to be hanging around. Since it was written in 1978, this could have something to do with it, but I would argue that, while the bond with the mother is very important, parents can do quite a lot to assure that the baby is bonding and close to both parents. Just something to keep in mind. (This isn't meant to be a review of the whole book, just a side note.)

To be honest, I didn't read it all from cover to cover. Of that which I read, I found it was a lot of psycho babble and I always found myself asking "How do you know that?" They did include references, but I found myself questioning the basic logic. Also, I didn't find this book helpful in being a better mother, which is the reason I bought it in the first place.

This book is way out of date and just wrong in many factual areas in the same way that Freud was wrong. For example, it touts that poor mothering causes autism. This book makes it sound like a certain type of mothering accounts for all of a child's development and fails to take into consideration innate variability amongst children. Pass this book up. There are too many other great, well-researched books out there.