Understanding The Developmental Trauma That Happens When Parents Don't Help A Child Separate & Individuate

Understanding Developmental Trauma, Boundary Wounding, & How It Shapes The Adults We Become

In the last installment of The Boundaries Handbook, which I’m releasing for paid subscribers, we discussed the predictable patterns of developmental trauma, describing what tends to happen if the healthy bonding “symbiosis” phase of infant development gets interrupted. In today’s post, we’ll discuss the next phase of Mahler’s childhood development model- SEPARATION & INDIVIDUATION (5-24 months).

Separation and individuation is broken into three distinct phases.  During separation/ individuation, the child learns there is a “me” and a “not-me,” or “other.” When this goes well, kids grow up realizing that they have an independent, individuated identity, a sovereign self that is autonomous and separate from the parents and other people. This includes realizing other people are allowed to have emotions that are separate from our own emotions, we are allowed to have boundaries, other people are entitled to have boundaries, we are allowed to have different beliefs, preferences, and points of view than our parents do, and we shouldn’t have to feel like love, safety, or intimacy is threatened if we assert this birthright to become separate and have our boundaries respected.

Phase 1: Hatching (5-9 months)- After months of juicy oneness with mommy, the baby starts to get curious about Mommy as something separate from baby. Baby starts to pull away from the mother and wants to discover what’s out there! He may be very curious about Mommy as this strange other, playing with her face and discovering her. He’s like a little chicken hatching out of the egg, poking his little beak through the shell and beginning to individuate.

If you’ve watched the documentaries about the IBLP cult, like Shiny Happy People and the Duggar family, you’ll hear the horror stories about “blanket training,” an abusive practice used to break the will of children during the hatching phase, so they grow up to be obedient cult members who fear individuating and get punished for any willfulness or displays of autonomy. During blanket training, a baby who can crawl but can’t yet walk is put on their belly on a square blanket, then they’re enticed with something exciting off the edge of the blanket, like a cool toy. The baby will crawl off the blanket to grab the rattle or play with the truck- and then the parent will strike the child or scold the baby for crossing the edge of the blanket. It’s made into a sort of game, but the result is an intentional developmental arrest of the separation/ individuation phase of healthy childhood development.

Over time, the baby learns to stay still on the blanket and not risk crossing the edge of the blanket. This developmentally-traumatizing kind of child abuse makes it more likely that the child will grow up compliant, fawning, afraid of exploration and discovery, and vulnerable to coercive control from the parents or cult leaders.

Good enough parents, on the other hand, foster hatching, celebrating a baby’s discovery of the world, offering toys, games, play time, and adequate safety but without overprotection during this phase.

Phase 2: Practicing (10 months to 18 months) This is baby’s omnipotent Superman phase. He still feels connected to mommy, so he doesn’t want to get too far away from her, but he’s very enthusiastic about testing limits, trying new things, and discovering, exploring, and delighting in the big, bold world out there. This is baby’s “I can do anything” phase. Baby doesn’t yet realize there are limits to what he can do safely, so he might be a bit reckless at this phase, testing limits. He doesn’t realize he can get hurt or hurt others yet. In this childhood phase, children need parents who delight in their discoveries and allow them to begin to separate, but who also set clear limits so the potentially reckless child doesn’t get too hurt. 

Overprotective parents may unwittingly set limits that are too restrictive and controlling, interrupting the healthy individuation process in the name of keeping the baby safe. This kind of parenting will squelch the little one’s enthusiasm and boundary injury them with too many limits, failing to celebrate the baby’s delight with the world and potentially raising a timid, frightened child who won’t take appropriate risks.

Instead of supporting this energetic, exhilarated phase and nurturing their delight and curiosity, such parents fence in the baby and spoil all his fun. In doing so, they also interrupt the child’s assertiveness and ability to take initiative and make things happen when they grow up. An overly controlled child will likely grow into an adult who is handicapped in his ability to individuate, take risks, and assert himself.

While healthy infancy requires symbiotic connection and attachment to and attunement from the mother, toddlers need to separate from this early enmeshment in order to become, enjoy, and anchor their own separate personhood. They often do so by testing and practicing limits and boundaries in the “terrible two’s” and beyond.

Some boundary wounded or self-absorbed parents interpret this healthy individuation as rejection or rebellion and squelch the child’s attempt to separate from the symbiotic attachment to the mother. Teenagers go through another phase of individuation, and by the time the child leaves home, autonomy should be fully established. Parents who do not let their kids individuate may raise enmeshed, compliant, pleasing adults who have not fully broken up with Mom and Dad and are infantilized and stunted in their attempt to become fully functioning, sovereign adults.

Because their parents didn’t teach them healthy boundaries and respect healthy limits, these people may have trouble saying no, setting limits, and speaking their mind without fear or guilt. Having interfered with the child’s healthy individuation process, parents like this may also raise rebellious, anti-social, or noncompliant adults who think boundaries or even laws don’t apply to them.

As described in Laurence Heller’s Healing Developmental Trauma, in the NeuroAffective Relational Model, if the developmental need for autonomy is not met, children grow up to become ambivalent adults, paralyzed by their internal contradictions. They often complain of being stuck or in a morass and have difficulty making adult decisions and asserting themselves. They fear losing their independence when they become intimate, because they confuse intimacy with enmeshment and don’t know how to both stay close and keep separate.

They may grow up with a tendency to “fawn” others- choosing to please others over themselves, but then they harbor resentment later and blame others or rebel. They tend to fear being rejected or attacked if they are openly oppositional and wind up inappropriately apologetic, as if they have to make excuses for having their own opinions, needs, and feelings when those differ from others. They may come across as superficially easy to please, but underneath, they covertly feel spiteful, angry, and may resort to passive aggressive behaviors because they’re too scared to be openly assertive, confrontational, or aggressive.

Because they’ve had their autonomy usurped, they may be secretive about their pleasures and lie to cover them up, for fear that they will be taken away if exposed. They tend to be binary in thinking that their only choices are to submit to authority or rebel against it, because they haven’t learned to find the middle path. They strongly fear humiliation and orient their lives around avoiding that feeling. They tend to avoid or distance themselves from confrontational situations, rather than facing conflict head on. They tend to be paranoid about the motivations of others and perceive that others have hidden agendas, even when they don’t.

They may enjoy being secretively oppositional, even enjoying letting others down as a way to assert their autonomy privately, without risking upsetting anyone externally. They confuse their unwillingness to stand up for themselves with being easy-going and flexibile, when really it’s a sign of conflict avoidance. Because they find it so hard to make decisions, they tend to use the pressure of waiting until the last minute before a deadline as a motivating force to break through their paralysis in order to complete tasks about which they’re ambivalent.

When the developmental need for autonomy is not met, the child may grow into an adult with shame-based identifications, feeling angry on the inside, resentful of authority, internally rebellious, and secretly enjoying disappointing others. They may also develop survival strategies that are more pride-based, boosting themselves up by perceiving themselves as nice, sweet, and compliant, the good boy or good girl who underneath, is terrified of disappointing others.

While some parents may be overprotective in this phase, wounding their child by not giving them enough freedom, other boundary-wounded parents may swing to the other extreme, giving the child too much freedom and being inconsistent with their limit-setting during the practicing phase. Especially if there is substance abuse in the home, parents might be rigid, controlling, and aggressive one moment, then drunk, high, distracted, passed out, and overly lax at other times. Such parenting sets people up to grow up always on guard, never trusting or relaxing around others, walking on eggshells because you never know whether you’re going to get a hug or a smack. This can lead to chronic anxiety in adulthood.

If parents are consistently indulgent, too loose, and lacking limit-setting during this phase, children may never learn that life has limits and that limits need to be respected. These children wind up controlling the parents. These are the kids who emotionally control and manipulate Mom or Dad until Mom or Dad relaxes the boundary- and the kid gets what she wants after wearing down the parents with incessant tantrums. These boundary-injured children grow into adults who can’t make and keep clear agreements, who violate other people’s boundaries (and let others violate theirs). They lack follow through, and may never develop into responsible adults unless they get treatment.

Their neurotically-indulgent, conflict-avoidant, underprotective parents set them up to expect to be indulged. They grow up entitled and expecting instant forgiveness when they violate the boundaries of others or fail to show up in responsible ways. They expect others to clean up their inevitable messes for them. They grow up unable to hear or respect other peoples’ no, since Mom and Dad never taught them that no means no. They grow up expecting others to serve them, without thinking they have any responsibility to serve others.

Some boundary-injured adults get stuck in this phase and never outgrow it, growing into reckless “Peter Pan” adults who never grow up but can be charmingly fun, playful, and child-like. These “Peter Pan syndrome” adults tend to choose boundary-injured, highly over-functioning and over-responsible types to partner with. Because they lack confidence in “adulting” and look to others to protect them, pay their bills, organize and manage their lives, follow through on the tedious tasks of a mature, responsible adult, and generally pick up the slack, they tend to avoid other Peter Pan types and go for more of the “Wendy complex” types.