The bond that forms between mother and child through eye contact and physical contact in the first days of a newborn’s life stimulates a powerful feeling of belonging in both. This initial mutual intimacy is important and if it is lacking, it can no longer be created, and its absence can be a serious obstacle to the emotional development of the child.
In the first weeks of its life, a child needs to see itself reflected in its mother. The British paediatrician and psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott illustrates this concept using the image of a mother who looks at her child while holding it in her arms and the child who, in turn, looks at the mother's face and finds itself there. For this to happen, the mother must put aside the expectations and fears she has about her child, look at that unique and defenceless little being she holds in her arms, and see it as it really is.
Growing up with a mirror mother enables a child to gradually develop a healthy relationship with his or her self. This automatic and natural contact with one's emotions and needs builds an individual’s strength and self-esteem. It is just as important for the mother to be affectionate or - if she is not able to be affectionate - to allow her child to acquire from other people what she cannot give directly. In this way a child can freely experience all kinds of feelings – including sadness, anger, or despair – without the subconscious fear of upsetting the mother.
The situation becomes more complicated when a mother is insecure or suffers from depression. (The author specifies that the term "mother" used throughout the book serves to broadly indicate the main person who takes care of the newborn). Unconsciously, an insecure mother will try to fill her own needs for security, attention, consideration, and respect through her child. This does not mean that she will not love the creature, quite the reverse, she will shower the child with love, but she will do so in the wrong way, as if this child were her prized possession. In this type of relationship, the child will not be free to experience their own emotions, but only those that the mother needs, thus preventing them from fully understanding themselves and their own needs.
