Affective interaction mother-infant and the personality formation

Abstract

This paper is the result of a Masters' thesis in which we conduct an analysis of personality formation with the goal of better understanding the situation of children living on the streets. We have looked at the problem from a psychoanalytical perspective, which postulates that the affective interaction between mother and infant plays a fundamental role in personality formation. Our hypothesis is that the personality of youngsters from underprivileged families can be compromised even in their first year of life, taking into account the stressing and destabilizing factors in these families' emotional conditions. We have identified youngsters, most of them involved with drugs and crime, raised in unstructured families in quite adverse conditions. We propose public policies for families with pregnant women, as well as for those with infants in their first year, that aim at providing better support for parents' emotional conditions, which in their turn provide better conditions for their children's personality formation.