good enough mother

in the object relations theory of British psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott (1896–1971), the ordinary, devoted mother who provides an adequate or good enough environment for the growth of the infant’s ego to express its true self. The good enough mother begins mothering by adapting entirely to the infant and providing an environment free of impingements, but later she gradually and inadvertently creates small failures of adaptation that allow the infant to tolerate the frustrations of reality.

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Psychology term of the day

July 27th 2024

horizontal–vertical illusion

the misperception that vertical lines are longer than horizontal lines when both are actually the same length. The vertical element of an upper case letter T, for example, looks longer than the cross bar, even when the lengths are identical. See also foreshortening; Helmholtz square illusion.