The importance of mother-baby relationship in the first year of life as a determining factor for a thorough emotional development

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper is based on theories of Donald Winnicott, Esther Bick, Marta Harris and their collaborators and focuses on the importance of mother-baby relationship in the first year of life as a determinant factor for a thorough emotional development. The author discusses factors considered fundamental for the first childhood in the context of the emotional development and maturation of the individual process, such as the necessity of a facilitating environment, the fulfillment of the minimum requirements of every baby, the breastfeeding as the first dialogue, the first signs of the personality, and the nature of nonverbal communication in mother-baby couple. The mother who can understand the physiological and emotional necessities of her baby provides the development of a creative communication. Distortions and difficulties of mother-baby relationship may cause many of the later emotional and psychosomatic diseases.