This is an excerpt of the full article "Merger and Separation" which contains the poem, Merger and Separation, posted on Authors Den, a clinical excerpt, and a report of InnerRESOURCES Idea #5, What Is Me And What Is Not Me?, applied to New Mothers and their babies.

New Mothers and Their Babies
Dialectic Between Merger And Identity

Clinical Excerpt-The Story of Marsha and Andrew
I was reminded of the dialectic between “merger” and “identity” most recently when I had the opportunity of experiencing “Andrew”, the newborn baby boy of Marsha and David.
In the days and months after his birth, and even now as his first year approaches, I felt the boundaries of my mood, my state of mind, actually I found myself almost “blubbering” and “gooing”, and had to catch myself. I thought I should not go back to work. Maybe take the day off. Play with Andrew. And that was only after a few minutes. Imagine how “caught up” I might get if we spent more time together.

The Power Of The Newborn, Of Birth
The effects are quite powerful, especially to the unwary and coming from one so tiny and innocent. I remember watching an Asian gangster film, “Hardboiled” which seems to borrow on all that had preceded it, from the Bond films, through the self righteous Bronson and Eastwood series, right up through Stallone and Snipes, and their own two gun shooting “Hit-Man”. There was a scene where in the midst of almost humorous amounts of violence, babies had to be evacuated from a hospital ward. Well, the top cop practically begins to “coo” ever so gently as he puts cotton in the ears of one the babies he is carrying, so he wont be upset by the noise as he continues to blow away the opposition.

And, then there’s the Damien and Firestarter series. Let’s just say I was reminded of the power of the newborn. Of birth. So no need to document this further with references to the spiritual, or to carefully conducted psychological studies.

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