SEPARATION-INDIVIDUATION AS A FAMILY TRANSACTIONAL PROCESS IN THE TRANSITION TO PARENTHOOD

This is a study of the impact of prebirth level of parental and marita l individuation on the course of parent-infant and infant development during the first postnatal year. Support was found for the first hypot hesis, namely, that a couple's composite individuation profile, taking into account the prebirth separation-individuation of the father and the mother, and their marriage, would be associated with positive infa nt development and parent-infant transactions related to separation-in dividuation and mutuality during the first postnatal year. A second hy pothesis, that maternal individuation would most strongly predict infa nt and parent-infant development at 6 months, while paternal individua tion would emerge at 1 year as a strong predictor, was not supported. It was found instead that prebirth maternal and paternal individuation were equally strong predictors at six months, while maternal individu ation was the primary predictor at 12 months. Other findings on the di rect and indirect associations between prebirth parental and marital i ndividuation and postnatal parent-infant transactions suggest that ear ly separation-individuation processes result from a complex configurat ion of triadic mother-father-infant transactions.