Of Mobile Phones and Mothers

Mobile phonesFootnote1 have become ubiquitous, however their import for the psyche remains under-researched from a psychoanalytic viewpoint. The central ideas of this paper draw from psychoanalytically informed, unstructured qualitative research interviews with post-graduate students about their use of mobile phones, during which a strong theme regarding mobile contact with mothers specifically and spontaneously emerged. These mother-child dynamics, as enacted through mobile phone usage, are explored using Winnicott’s concepts of the ‘capacity to be alone’ and transitional phenomena and Mahler’s theory of separation-individuation, with a focus on the ways in which closeness, dependency, and separation are negotiated. Following on from Winnicott’s notion of object survival, concepts from Benjamin and Baraitser such as attacks on maternal subjectivity and separateness, and reparative gestures are borrowed to extend the discussion of development from an intrapsychic process to acknowledging the self-other dialect as a mutually influencing process. In these negotiations the mobile phone becomes a site where transitional dilemmas are expressed - we see the phone operate, as well as fail, as both a transitional object and a transitional space in which to negotiate developmental strivings. The authors also consider clinical implications and applications of considering the psychological value mobile phones may play for patients.