that his/her psychic space is expanded and gradually populated by representations. Such a rich internal life seems to be the necessary prerequisite for high‐quality aloneness experiences. However, this is not an easy task; the infant has to make much effort to address the issue of the mother’s absence and to deal with his/her aloneness, in other words, to engage in the work of the negative (Green, 1999), and in this work the mother plays a decisive role.
In general, the notion of the negative sheds a different light on the understanding of the origins of beneficial solitude because it shifts our attention from the mother’s presence (as attachment theory postulates; see Mikulincer, Shaver, & Inbal Gal, Chapter 3) to the mother’s absence. This absence, which entails the infant’s aloneness, is a crucial early experience; absence is regarded as negative presence, full of creative fantasies that enhance the inner world of the infant and stir his/her representational activity, therefore expanding his/her capacity to tolerate and enjoy solitude as well as to be patient until the mother returns. This occurs with one condition: the mother needs to alternate between presence and absence with a pace analogous to the infant’s ability to deal with aloneness. Otherwise, her image in the mind of the infant is effaced and the infant’s aloneness becomes emptiness, a psychic hole that persists in later years and is likely to become the root of severe (mainly narcissistic and borderline) psychopathology.
Oceanic Feeling and Oneness Experience
The sublime aloneness experience, which is deeply rooted in what takes place in infancy, is perhaps the oceanic feeling and, in general, the oneness experience. The concept of the oceanic feeling (or feeling of the eternal) was introduced by Romain Rolland and discussed by Freud (1930/1961) in relation to primary narcissism during infancy. He defined it as “a sensation of ‘eternity’, a feeling as of something limitless, unbounded” (p. 64) and as “a feeling of indissoluble bond, of being one with the external world as a whole” (p. 65). By definition, this feeling occurs in solitude as in the contact with God, nature, or art but it may also take place in the most intimate connection with another human being, such as in love, where the sense of loneliness is expected to be eliminated. It may even take the form of an ecstatic or mystic experience. In attempting to formulate a genetic explanation of this experience, as he called it, Freud (1930/1961) regarded the oceanic feeling as the result of the regression to the state of primary narcissism, where there is no differentiation of the inner from the outer, or a restoration of limitless narcissism, a view later adopted by Mahler (Mahler et al., 1975) in her description of merger experiences (as noted previously).
More recently, Storr (1988) argued that the individual’s ability to feel united with another presupposes a high degree of ego organization and integration. It is a vital and highly subjective experience, with permanent positive effects on the individual. Sometimes, such an experience may completely alter one’s life. The Freudian view that the oceanic feeling is regressive (i.e., the illusion of return to an infantile condition, to the bliss of a lost paradise) is dismissed. Storr (1988) considered creative activity, scientific discovery, childbirth, some forms of exercise, silence, and solitude itself as additional triggers for this experience.
Support for this view provides the encounter of psychoanalysis and infant research: merging is possible only if an intact, bounded sense of self is first established (Lachmann & Beebe, 1989); merger‐ or fusion‐like experiences reflect a capacity achieved only after the formation of a sense of self and other. The origins of both oneness experiences and the stable sense of self can be traced in early mother–infant matching, attunement, and repair of disruptions in attunement. Similarly, in more recent psychoanalytic thought (Chirban, 2000), it has been argued that only a well‐integrated and cohesive self can loosen its boundaries and feel high levels of intimacy with another. These progressive, rather than regressive, oneness experiences start with an energetic readiness, which is followed by immersion in the unity, and lead to a self‐transformation. They are characterized by timelessness and lack of self‐consciousness, and a move forward, instead of a longing for past merger experiences. The distinction between experiencing oneness and searching for or fantasizing oneness is a crucial one, in that only in the former is the individual really engaged in the moment and able to experience all the beneficial outcomes.
In conclusion, all the above views seem to agree that, throughout life, oneness experiences, in which loneliness is diminished and aloneness is felt as heightening the sense of existence, stem from the well‐attuned, euphoric moments of meeting between the infant and the mother in the first few months of life (the prototype perhaps being the union of intrauterine life). During childhood, this limitless and timeless elation is usually experienced by the child when he/she is left alone and unbothered, so that he/she becomes immersed in play.
The Capacity To Be Alone and the Necessity of Being Alone
In a previous section I discussed the implications for the solitary self of Winnicott’s ideas on essential aloneness, noncommunicating self and going‐on‐being. However, the greatest contribution of his theory to the understanding of aloneness is the brilliant conception of the capacity to be alone (Winnicott, 1965). This conception is at the heart of his developmental and clinical theorization and at the center of psychoanalytic insight on solitude. The capacity to be alone arises from a paradox: “This experience is that of being alone, as an infant and small child, in the presence of mother” (p. 30). The mother identifies with her infant during the first months of life, a state called ego‐relatedness or object‐relating. Gradually, the infant introjects this supportive mother and becomes able to tolerate and enjoy solitude. Therefore, if all goes well, no one is ever truly alone, as there is always someone there; and only in this sophisticated aloneness can the child unfold his/her true self.
This facet of Winnicott’s conception can be regarded as the necessity of being alone, although he did not explicitly make the distinction between capacity and necessity (Schacht, 2001). The necessity of being alone is described in statements such as the following (Winnicott, 1965): “It is only when alone (that is to say, in the presence of someone) that the infant can discover his own personal life” (p. 34). The capacity to be alone is a major manifestation of emotional maturity and is not acquired by all individuals, whereas the necessity of being alone is universal.
Winnicott (1965) offered a comprehensive description of what we could call “solitude in the first years of life”: “The infant is able to become unintegrated, to flounder, to be in a state in which there is no orientation, to be able to exist for a time without being either a reactor to an external impingement or an active person with a direction of interest or movement” (p. 34). He also made the developmental claim that many individuals become able to enjoy solitude before the end of childhood and that some children “may even value solitude as a most precious possession” (Winnicott, 1965, p. 30). When discussing the noncommunicating self, he explicitly relates the ability for aloneness with the capacity to concentrate on a task, a major developmental aim during childhood (Winnicott, 1965).
The state I am alone passes through three developmental phases. The first one is the I, the phase of the integration or unit of the individual; “I includes ‘everything else is not me’” (Winnicott, 1965, p. 61). Next, comes I am, which signifies that the infant exists, is alive, although still vulnerable or even paranoid; he/she has a contact with reality (the not‐me) and is able to share with the use of the mechanisms of introjection and projection, which facilitate mutual enrichment. Sharing means, among other things, that his/her existence is recognized by others. And finally, comes I am alone, which stems from the infant’s awareness that a reliable mother exists for him/her. In this light, loneliness can be understood as arising in the I am phase (a close parallel to Klein’s [1975] depressive position). The infant, even under favorable circumstances, may experience failures in sharing, the main failure being that he/she is not seen or recognized
