What has to be negotiated by every child that matures successfully into a human adult is the separation from his or her early state of fusion with the mother, to one in which he or she is aware of being a distinct person, separate from the mother, yet without the close connexion with her being lost; and, through her, connexion with the rest of the experienced world. This is not a matter of a change of quantity (more or less connexion), but a change of quality in the connexion: equally (arguably more) connected, but now in a different way.
