Review of Vision and separation: Between mother and baby.

Abstract

This book was written by a psychiatrist-psychoanalyst and is intended mainly for classical Freudian psychoanalysts with a philosophical bent. Topics covered include the "preeminent" role of the "mother's face" in development (pp. 9, 109), transitional object attachment, attachment theory in general, the sense of self and other, philosophy, the Bible, consciousness, existentialism, religion, symbol formation, linguistics, introjection, illusion, aspects of the Oedipus complex, metaphor, and the father's role in development. The author's basic thesis is that, somehow, the mother's face becomes the "guiding light of [the baby's] mind" (p. 12).According to Wright, the mother's face, particularly her smile, is the baby's first transitional object (p. 108), and attachment behavior throughout life can be traced back to this introject. This is explained with reference (p. xv) to only two of Winnicott's articles and without citations of a pertinent and extensive transitional object literature that has developed since the early 1970s. I address the author's scholarship and the many problems with his thesis. First, however, I make some overview comments pertaining to scholarship issues and to tone and style not specific to the transitional object concept.The author's theory is about the face, the baby's view of the face and its parts, and how this affects emotional development throughout life. To Wright, classical psychoanalysis has nothing to say on the matter: He "noted the almost complete absence of the face in psychoanalytic theory" (p. 333). He asks, "Is there not a gap in psychoanalytic theory, even present-day theory, where the face should be? Are those thick lips and large mouth [referring to the cortical homunculus, p. 1] really all there is to the human face?" (p. 2). In his "search of the psychoanalytic indexes," it was remarkable how few entries could be found under face; he found a "plethora of references to mouth, breast, penis, vagina" but little or nothing under face (p. 4).