INDEX OF QUOTES
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All too often we hear of the Bonding/Attachment need in children. The Separating Out dynamic is the other side, the counterpoint. It starts with the birth and cutting of the umbilical cord and can be observed in many other ways and dynamics, even within the first few weeks, but certainly in the first few months of the baby’s life. Yes, the Primary Bond is critical, but equally essential and critical is the process of separating out. Not enough recognition is given to this dynamic and it is a significant gap in our learning that there is a wealth of literature on Attachment and a great dearth of it on Separating Out. It must be borne in mind that regardless of the enormous significance of the family and so on, we are all called upon to grow up, to become a self in our own right, in a mutually enhancing way, but in a way which means that we transcend parents and family in its dependent relativity, and move into elective mutually respecting relationships not based on biology and needs, but on the recognition of human dignity and splendour. In this way we discover to ourselves a wholeness and integrity that enables us to tackle the two major tasks of life: Work and Love and to face, accept and experience our final separating out which is our own death. The child then is a person, in whom there are inherent Rights associated with Needs and these are before, beyond, above any biological or relational tie. The child is a person who, experiencing responsive, consistent, affirming, containing relationships, increasingly experiences and discovers to himself an inner inviolable unique self that is positive and constructive, then in interaction with others and the world it meets, balances the tension between the self it chooses to be and the self others would seek to make it. |
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