In the literature, particularly in the work of M. Ainsworth, a classification is proposed of the different ways a mother can be present with her child. It highlights quantitative deficits, qualitative deficits, and interactive discontinuity.
Quantitative deficits are linked to the mother's real, physical absence, and were brought to light in the 1960s especially through the work of the psychoanalysts J. Bowlby (1907-1990, British) and R. Spitz (1887-1974, Austrian).
Bowlby is best known for «attachment theory», which explores how the mother-child bond forms, what kind of bond it can be, and how it influences the child's development.
Spitz highlighted the devastating effect, called «anaclitic depression», that separation from the mother (or a substitute caregiver) has on a child. The symptoms the child shows (crying, distress, anger, weight loss, refusal of contact, motor delay), if reunion with the caregiver does not occur within a few weeks, intensify to the point of leading to a lethargic state, and often even death.
Qualitative deficits occur when the mother is physically present but psychically absent or only minimally available. In this context, maternal depression, particularly postpartum depression, plays a primary role.
Part of the qualitative deficits is what is called «false maternal presence», that is, the mother's absent attitude toward her infant.
In the relationship with her child, the falsely present mother shows little attention to the child's needs, distracted by inner concerns that keep her from seeing and meeting the child's desires. This emotional indifference, which prevents her from identifying with her child, from living what Winnicott called «primary maternal preoccupation», acts as a defense mechanism that inhibits and blocks the particularly intense and destructive unconscious aggressive impulses present in certain mothers. False presence therefore becomes the expression of an inhibition of aggression (so intense that it cannot be managed) directed at the child, who is its object but not its cause. This aggression, in fact, arises within the mother's unconscious, in which the child does not exist except as a substitute for objects tied to her own intrauterine and childhood life. Her aggression is directed at those objects; the child is merely their substitute.
False presence is a factor of considerable importance in child development. Depending on the child's predisposition, a relationship with a falsely present mother can become a determining causal factor in psychosis.
Interactive discontinuity affects both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the mother's presence. It is characterized by the mother's discontinuous presence with the child, who is jostled about without their own rhythms being respected, and exposed to double binds, that is, to contradictory signals. The mother alternates between moments of warm, affectionate interaction, when she is present and engaged, and moments of absence linked to her own inner problems and difficulties, whether depressive or quasi-delusional in nature. The environment the child grows up in therefore fails to guarantee continuity, which is synonymous with trust, and does not favor the organization of stable attachment patterns.
Today it is above all qualitative deficits and interactive discontinuity that «wound» the child (often quite severely). All mothers, in fact, know how important their presence is for their child, but they do not pay enough attention to its quality: a mother who is physically there but would rather be somewhere else, who plays with her child while thinking about what she would like or should be doing to feel fulfilled, who «feels imprisoned being a full-time mother, even if only for a while», is of little real use to the child.
In the case of interactive discontinuity, a mother who is too caught up in her own personal problems is unable to offer her child emotional continuity, creating confusion and a lack of secure reference points.