The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125

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The Arts in Psychotherapy

Non-verbal representations of maternal holding of preschoolers

Michal Bat Or, PhD ∗
University of Haifa, M.B. 506, Kfar Vradim 25147, Israel

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Keywords: This paper explored non-verbal maternal representations of holding as expressed in the clay sculptures
Holding depicting mother and child figures created by twenty-four mothers to preschoolers (age two to four
Mothers’ representations years). In addition to non-verbal data, the mothers were interviewed regarding their subjective under-
Preschool children
standing of the sculptures they made. Qualitative analysis of the sculptures and sculpting interviews
Clay sculpting
revealed a continuum of active vs. symbolic holding representations, with unique middle categories
Art-therapy
of passive holding representations that provides the child both protection and autonomy. The discus-
sion includes findings’ theoretical implications in light of attachment and psychoanalytic theories, and
therapeutic applications with a clinical vignette in art therapy.
© 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Introduction the life cycle – holding is internalized and becomes an internal-

Maternal holding is one of the central and most basic facets
of parenting (Bowlby, 1969; Winnicott, 1960). Holding describes
the provision of an emotionally/physically protective space for the
child that allows and facilitates the evolution of the child’s self-
experience and transition to increased autonomy. As such, holding
has been seen as playing a crucial role in the emotional and phys-
ical growth of the infant, its well-being, and healthy psychological
development (e.g. Massie, 1975, 1978; Rheingold & Keene, 1965).
Holding has been studied mainly as it is expressed in infancy and
from the infant’s perspective (First, 1994). The current study sets
out to explore the maternal perspective in regard to holding a child
beyond infancy, in the preschool years.
According to Winnicott (1960), maternal holding changes as the
infant grows, in accordance with the changing needs of the child.
Holding an absolutely dependent infant involves maternal care
which protects the infant against physiological insult. Since during
this period there is no clear distinction between physiology and
psychology, maternal holding meets both needs. Winnicott noted
that the mother’s identification (through primary maternal preoc-
cupation) with her infant’s needs enables her to sensitively provide
what the infant needs and at the same time set aside her own sub-
jective needs. As infants grow and become relatively dependent
they become better able to signal their needs, and thus can guide the
mother to meet them. Additionally, with time, infants can gradually
tolerate delays and mis-attunement in fulfillment of their needs
due to widening of their intellectual understanding. In the next
period – toward independence, from toddlerhood and throughout
∗ Tel.: +972 0545586551; fax: +972 49973350.
E-mail address: Michal.bator10@gmail.com
ized holding environment in which the child is gradually able to
meet the world outside by her/himself. Winnicott (1958, 1971) pro-
posed an additional quality of maternal care that forms the basis
of the capacity to be alone, enabling the infant and the child to
play alone in the presence of her/his mother. The mother’s pres-
ence must not be obtrusive or intrusive so that the infant/child can
focus on self-exploration and self-involvement. Winnicott (1958)
called this maternal care “ego-relatedness”, which deals with rela-
tionships between two people, in which one of them is alone but
the presence of the other is significant.
Ogden (2004) contended that with age a shift toward a more
metaphorical holding develops, one in which the child experi-
ences integration by being known as a whole to the mother.
Bodily holding, usually in the mother’s arms, is transformed into a
more symbolic holding that provides a sense of support. Josselson
(1996), who studied various dimensions of adult relationship space,
described this shift:
“As development proceeds, experiences of being held move
from the physical to the emotional realm and become more
symbolic. . . the “holding” of infancy becomes the “support” of
later years” (Josselson, 1996, p. 31).
The holding concept thus conveys diverse maternal functions
in congruence with the child’s needs and developmental stages.
Despite Winnicott’s theory regarding maternal holding as an onto-
logical concept that changes over time in attunement to child’s
development, the holding concept resonates mostly with a portrait
of a mother cradling her infant in her arms (Ogden, 2004). This por-
trait has been perceived as romantic and idealized (Kraemer, 1996).
Contemporary scholars from the feministic (e.g. Bassin, Honey, &
Kaplan, 1994) and psychoanalytic perspectives (Benjamin, 1988,
1994; Kraemer, 1996) argued for a more complex view of

0197-4556/$ – see front matter © 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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118 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125
mothering, which would also contain holding experiences that
stem out of reluctance, for instance when the mother cannot fully
identify with her baby (Slochower, 1996). According to Slochower
(1996), the end of infancy marks the end of the period associated
with the classic maternal holding metaphor:
“As the baby becomes a toddler and a child, her evolving auton-
omy capacities ordinarily diminish the frequency and intensity
of her need for a holding experience in Winnicott’s sense”
(Slochower, 1996, p. 61).
However, there is still a scarcity of research dealing with the
maternal perspective to holding, and especially to developmental
changes in maternal holding beyond infancy (Negayama, Kawai,
Yamamoto, Tomiwa, & Sakakihara, 2010).
Maternal holding: a developmental perspective
In line with the changing needs of infants, research identified
related changes in how holding is enacted. Saijo (2002) found from
observation of mothers and their one-to seven-month-old infants
a transition from horizontal to vertical holding, mainly due to the
infants’ ability to keep their heads upright and their resistance to
horizontal holding. Saijo (2004) also found that mothers gradually
decreased holding their one-to-thirteen-month-old infants from
6 h a day in infancy to 2.5 h at thirteen months. The results of these
studies were explained in terms of infant development and the
mothers’ adaptation to infants’ growth.
Negayama et al. (2010) described maternal holding of mothers
of four- and nine-month-old infants within a large sample. Their
results indicate a change in postures toward holding that enables
infants to rotate their upper bodies and look around to explore the
environment. This change was a sign of increasing autonomy in
infant behavior at nine months, and according to the authors’ sug-
gestions, reflected the mothers’ accommodation to the changing
capacities and needs of their infants.
These few studies regarding the development and changes in
maternal holding are limited to infancy and do not include the
perspective of mothers’ subjective experiences regarding these
changes.
Parenting representations
The interest in studying parents’ mental worlds has developed
mainly during the last two decades (Arendell, 2000; Mayseless,
2006). Within the framework of attachment theory, a central place
is accorded to the caregiving behavioral system, which is described
as a motivational-behavioral system in the parent. This behavioral
system is governed by caregiving representations that are both the
product of the ongoing relationship with the child and “a mediating
mechanism through which the mother’s own upbringing comes to
influence her care for her child” (George & Solomon, 2006, p. 266).
Various parenting interviews have been developed by different
research groups (e.g. Zeanah, Benoit, & Barton, 1996) to capture
these representations. These research groups assessed a large num-
ber of specific parenting representations and also distinguished
three to four parenting representation types that parallel different
states of mind with regard to attachment as assessed by the Adult
Attachment Interview (for review see Mayseless, 2006). Scharf,
Mayseless, and Kivenson-Baron (1997/2000), for instance, devised
the PRI-C (Parenting Representations Interview-Childhood), whose
coding identified parental representations of the child (for instance,
trust/confidence in the child’s capacities, the extent to which the
parent has realistic confidence with regard to the child’s coping
capabilities in different contexts), parental representations of the
parent (for example, parental competence, the extent to which the
parent has realistic confidence with regard to his/her capacity to
handle various parenting situations effectively), and parental rep-
resentations of the relationship between the parent and his/her child
(for example, autonomy granting). Since parental representations
also reflect the operation of various defensive processes, the cod-
ing system of the interview identifies different degrees of parental
openness to change (for example due to child development), which
affect in its turn, the degree to which parental behavior is adapted
to the child’s needs and to contextual variables (George & Solomon,
1996; Zeanah et al., 1997).
Parenting representations are conceived as rooted in attach-
ment representations (Dozier, 2000; George & Solomon, 1989) and
include conscious and verbal facets along with unconscious and
non-verbal ones. Some of the unconscious non-verbal facets prob-
ably originate from non-verbal experiences within the parent–child
relationship when the parent himself/herself was a child. These are
procedural representations that are rapid, preconscious, and pre-
verbal (Crittenden, Lang, Claussen, & Partridge, 2000). Procedural
parenting representations affect parents’ emotional and behavioral
expressions through well-learned automatic patterns (Crittenden,
2006). Procedural representations are not easily captured by verbal
means such as verbal interviews, but could be identified through
non-verbal expressions, such as artwork (Mayseless, 2006).
Since maternal holding is rooted early in infancy and is first
and foremost physical and non-verbal, asking mothers to depict
themselves with their child using clay work may offer a unique
gateway through which we can learn about holding representations
of mothers. Clay work echoes a developmental period (Kramer,
1971), when touch and sensual sensations were the main channels
of communication. Furthermore, through the process of sculpting
and observation of the final product, clay work is known to reveal
the subjective experience in a tangible manner, in particular, its
procedural facets and affective experiences (Sholt & Gavron, 2006).
The current study combined verbal with non-verbal means of
inquiry. Mothers were asked to sculpt themselves with their child
using clay and were then interviewed about their sculptures and
the sculpting process. Through qualitative analyses of the sculp-
tures and the interview regarding this process we wanted to learn
about mothers’ non-verbal representations of holding. Mothers’
holding representations when the child was in his or her preschool
years were explored. This developmental period presents mothers
with the challenge of accommodating the development of sep-
aration and individuation. Two dialectical developmental issues
confront the child at this period: the first is the child’s eagerness to
explore vs. his/her need for a secure base (Lieberman, 1996); the
second is the child’s need to differentiate himself/herself from the
parent, vs. his/her need for parental recognition and acceptance
(Sander, 1984). Ruddick (1989) described the complex maternal
subjective experience that results from the need both to hold and
protect, on the one hand, and to encourage and expect individua-
tion and autonomy, on the other.
The current study explored the procedural images of maternal
holding as the mothers strive to come to terms with these chal-
lenges.
The main objective of this research was to study the charac-
teristics and qualities of the mothers’ representations of holding,
as revealed through the non-verbal procedural and less conscious
channel of expression, and through mothers’ verbal interpretations
of their visual expressions.
Method
Participants
The sample comprised twenty-four married working mothers
with a first and only child aged twenty-one months to four years
 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125
who were not pregnant while participating in the study. Thir-
teen were mothers to boys and eleven were mothers to girls. All
the mothers were secular and from middle class families. These
inclusion criteria were chosen in order to minimize variability
and produce a homogeneous sample that would allow for induc-
tively generating conceptual understandings (Gilgun, 2005). The
mothers’ ages ranged between 21.5 and 37 years (M = 29.91). The
mother’s education ranged from twelve to nineteen years. Most of
the pregnancies were planned and wanted (twenty of twenty-four
pregnancies). The mothers and children names have been changed
to ensure confidentiality.
Recruitment procedure
The sampling process sought to gather a wide range of mater-
nal experiences. Recruiting respondents was accomplished through
purposeful sampling (Patton, 1990) and advanced as data analysis
progressed. Participants were recruited through advertisements in
kindergartens and community centers and by using the “snow ball”
method to attain a convenience sample (Strauss & Corbin, 1998).
Procedures
Meetings with the mothers were held individually in their
homes, and included the sculpting task, and a sculpting inter-
view. Beforehand, the interviewer clarified the aims of the study
and prevailing ethical guidelines. Written informed consents were
obtained from all interviewees.
Clay sculpting task of mother and child figures. Mothers were
given a single, round 15 cm lump of clay. The clay was placed on a
piece of cardboard with five wooden sculpting tools nearby. Before
sculpting, a warm-up stage was held during which the researcher
conveyed a number of basic instructions regarding working with
clay to create three-dimensional sculptures. After this stage, par-
ticipants were told, “Please sculpt yourself with your child, or sculpt
the relationship between you and your child.” The participants
were asked to sculpt a three-dimensional sculpture.
The sculpting interview. The sculpting interview is a semi-
structured interview (Patton, 1990) constructed for the purpose
of this study. The interview includes several sections: observa-
tion of the sculpture from all angles by means of the researcher
slowly turning the cardboard holding the sculpture in front of the
participant; the subjective understanding of the sculpture by the
participant, for example, asking, “What do you see?”; verbal recon-
struction of the sculpting process, for example, asking, “Do you
remember whether you had obstacles or frustrations during the
sculpting process?”; and a few projective questions regarding the
clay figures, for example, “If the mother figure could talk, what
would she say?”
Data analysis
A qualitative analysis was held. The analysis strategies
employed in the present study were drawn from several qual-
itative approaches, in particular, the phenomenological and the
hermeneutic, and further employed several methods including the
visual method and a multiple case study approach to facilitate
methodological triangulation (Janesick, 2000). The phenomeno-
logical approach (Husserl, 1913), specifically, the phenomenology
approach in art therapy (Betensky, 1995), focuses on “the art
of looking and seeing,” in which unique attention is paid to
the authentic experience of the art process and art product of
the creator. Ricoeur’s (1981) hermeneutic approach provides the
opportunity for inquiry processes that deeply explore potential
meanings of the data. Since every participant in the study was
considered to be an individual with a rich personal world, Yin’s
119
“multiple case study” (1984, 1989), was employed which is the col-
lective version of a single case study. It includes cross-case analysis
and an integrative endeavor for interlacing the data of each of the
participants. The study also embraced techniques borrowed from
the “visual method” (Banks, 2001; Harrison, 2002), a qualitative
method that deals with non-verbal data analysis.
Data analyzed included the sculptures, and the sculpting inter-
views, and was specific to each data form.
The sculptures were analyzed in two different ways: first, a phe-
nomenological analysis of the sculptures, for example the size and
proportions of the two figures; and second, a hermeneutic analy-
sis of the sculptures’ content, such as the emotional expression of
each figure. Maternal holding images were examined carefully and
precisely according to the phenomenological method of observa-
tion, which studies the structure, interrelated components, and the
whole quality (Betensky, 1995). Some of the elements that were
observed were who holds who in the sculpture; which parts of
the body hold the child figure (the mother’s hands/bosom/hips or
through the adhesiveness of the clay/or merging organs); and what
is the area of contact between the two figures.
Holding functions were assessed through a hermeneutic and
phenomenological analysis; specifically, the physical safety of
maternal holding and the degree to which the holding allows the
child to move/explore. These dimensions were employed as indi-
cators of protection and autonomy-providing respectively. Each
sculpture was analyzed by three clinical psychotherapists (two
art-therapists and one clinical psychologist) to gain “investigator
triangulation” (Janesick, 2000).
The sculpting interviews were analyzed in four phases. First,
the researcher transcribed and read the transcripts until a deep
familiarity with the data was reached (Tesch, 1990). The second
phase involved inductive analysis and the deconstructive process,
in which the text was analyzed in a process of open coding (Strauss,
1987). This phase included finding keywords, metaphors, concepts,
and primary categories until central themes were identified, with
data collection being carried out concurrent to data analysis (e.g.
Glazer & Strauss, 1967). The third phase was theoretical consolida-
tion (LeCompte, Preissle, & Tesch, 1993), in which coding categories
were created according to a central axis and connections were
found between the categories. The final phase included coherent
integration of findings and development of the central themes into
a more abstract and theoretical form.
Integrative analysis. The first data to be analyzed qualitatively
were visual (sculptures), while the second were verbal (interviews)
by bracketing process (Kvale, 1996). After visual holding categories
were consolidated, common themes representing maternal hold-
ing were sought in the sculpting interviews for each category of
visual holding. Connections were found between the two chan-
nels, in readiness for theoretical consolidation (LeCompte et al.,
1993).
Findings
The sculptures conveyed a rich variety of maternal hold-
ing images. Phenomenological intentional observation (Betensky,
1995), which includes the study of structure, interrelated com-
ponents and the whole-quality, and a search of similarities and
differences in the images, revealed four holding categories that can
be seen as presenting a continuum of representations (Fig. 1). At
one end of the continuum is active holding, in which the mother
figure holds/hugs her child, generally an infant, in her arms, usu-
ally in a vertical, belly-to-belly position (6 sculptures); in the center
are two interesting categories, both of which contain a passive
element of holding. Passive holding is defined in this study as mater-
nal holding not in the mother figure’s arms, but by adhesiveness/
120 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125

Fig. 1. Maternal non-verbal holding representations.

merging of the clay figures one to the other or by a maternal “I see myself as a protecting mother, it means holding Shahar in
container-form which envelopes the child figure (see Fig. 1 for the my arms, even though he walks already [. . .] the best protection
two options of passive holding). The first center category is partly is to hold him in my arms, close to the heart”1 (7–11).
active holding, which entails a combination of active and passive
Galia represented herself as a protective mother; however,
ways of holding (eight sculptures); the second is passive holding
when she spontaneously realizes that her holding might limit her
(five sculptures), which expresses passive maternal holding only.
child’s autonomy, she questioned her assumption:
At the far end of the continuum are symbolic representations of
holding (five sculptures), in which the child figure is placed on Galia: “It could be that sometimes I’m too over protective. It
the ground, generally as a child or adolescent, usually with one could be that sometimes, I should more, ahm, let him manage
point of contact between the two figures, for example, holding by himself [. . .] I should a bit, put one hand away” (88–93).
hands.
In accordance with Galia’s intuition, the sculptures in this cate-
When holding representations were analyzed in the sculpt-
gory provide the child safety but limit exploration and autonomy.
ing interviews, unique themes were linked to each category of
maternal holding: In the active-holding category, the main themes
aroused were protection-giving (as parallel to safety) and question-
ing the degree of adaptation of that holding to the child’s needs.
Galia, for instance, mother to Shahar, a two-year-two-month-old 1
1[sic] Translations of this and the following interviews are rendered in language
boy, said about her sculpture (Fig. 2), as close as possible to the source vis-à-vis grammar, word usage, etc.
 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125 121

Figs. 4 and 5. Ayala’s sculpture.

such a huge reservoir like the sea, then uh, it’s like every time, to
throw him into the water gradually. I mean uh, as you can see,
the legs [The child’s legs- M.B] are already in, I believe, at some
point, he [The child- M.B] will want his independence too, and
it will happen, but always the embrace [The mother’s embrace-
M.B] will remain open, so he could step back in to it” (57–65)

Fig. 2. Galia’s sculpture. Ayala represents the second theme. She depicted the container
form as a stance diametrically opposed to the maternal embrace or
hug, as a space in which the child could practice his independence.
In the partly-active-holding category, maternal holding included
Thus, maternal container-forms in this category were associated
active and passive holding dimensions, with mixed variations of the
either with maternal provision of an opportunity to play alone
relationship between providing safety and autonomy-granting. In
while the mother is present or with maternal encouragement of
most of the sculptures the mother figure’s body included a con-
independence.
tainer form.
In the passive-holding category, the child figure is placed on the
Two alternative themes emerged in the sculpting interviews:
mother figure, usually as a toddler, without her enveloping arms.
in the first, the mother figure provides a space for the child as she
This type of holding enables the child to rotate, move, and explore
functions as a background. Naomi, for example, mother to a three-
quite freely, and thus enable autonomy. The common themes in the
year-old daughter, described the maternal container as providing
sculpture interviews were the mother’s awareness of the child’s
the child a space for playing (Fig. 3). In her words,
growing need for independence and her affective reactions to it.
Naomi: “Part of the mother, the, the bottom part is as if. . . some- Participants in this category were differentiated by their emotional
thing infinite that the child is sitting on. . . a space. . . a soft one reactions towards their child’s growth. On the one hand, some of
[. . .] you’re not sitting upon it and feels narrow, but you can lie the participants expressed a sense of loss of closeness, bodily touch,
and jump and dance (yes) it is a world” (58–75). and/or an increasing concern for the child’s well being, in compari-
son to the period of absolute dependency of the child; on the other
Naomi conveyed her sense of competence as a mother who
hand, joy and pleasure at the child’s growing independence were
enables her child to express freely while she is present. In contrast,
also present. The following examples illustrate maternal affect in
in the second theme, the maternal container space was perceived
relation to increased child independence: Naama, mother to Zohar,
as symbolizing the child’s independency and separateness. Ayala,
a four-year-old daughter (Fig. 6), vividly depicted her increased
mother to a three-and-a-half-year-old boy, sculpted a maternal
concern for her child:
container space that does not contain the child figure (Figs. 4 and 5).
Naama: “Zohar really wants to do something, and I try to protect
Ayala: “I did not want to sculpt legs [For the mother’s image-
her so she would not get hurt [. . .] although I left her an open
M.B], because legs have ends, [. . .] during sculpting I said o.k., it
space to do whatever she wants [. . .] I really try to envelop her
[The mother’s lower part- M.B] really looks like, a sea, like, Or,
in a secure way” (91–93).

Fig. 3. Naomi’s sculpture. Fig. 6. Naama’s sculpture.

122 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125
Fig. 7. Sheli’s sculpture.
Sheli, mother to a two-year-old toddler (see Fig. 7), described
her sense of joy:
Sheli: “I felt much of it. . . The part of the liberation, so to speak.
(Researcher: What do you mean?) [. . .] he is growing, he is
already a little man, he isn’t already [. . .] that boy that was cling-
ing on you, cause he has no choice, cause he depends on you,
and he cannot stand up on his feet [. . .] I wanted to emphasize
that, he is standing. He is not, he is not lying in me [. . .] It’s fun,
it’s a nice stage” (39–47).
To summarize, participants in this category discussed their
child’s growing independence and the consequent bipolar affect
regarding it.
In the last category, symbolic representations of holding, the child
figure was placed on the ground near the mother figure, as if having
the capacity to stand on its own feet, with the mother figure usually
touching the child with her hand. These images reflect recogni-
tion of the child’s autonomy, together with a sense of support from
the mother’s gesture of closeness and availability. As in the previ-
ous category, the mothers were preoccupied with the increasing
independence of their children, and showed ambivalent feelings
towards it; however, they described an interesting inner experi-
ence during the sculpting process: they had begun to visualized
symbiotic images of mother and infant but transformed them into
images depicting mutual relationship between mother and an older
child. Dalit, the mother of Erez, a three-and-a-half-year old boy
(Fig. 8), depicted this mental shift:
Dalit: “The. . . first. . . idea that popped up in me of a mother and
a child was something much more. embracing (yes) together
(yes) as breast feeding and such, but since me and Erez [. . .] so
it’s not true that I always ahm. with him hugging him (yes) He
is not sitting on me generally (yes) so I sculpt him besides me
cause he is not ahm. . . not separate. . . (yes) but he . . . is in my
hand” (37–40)
Fig. 8. Dalit’s sculpture.
Dalit depicted the process of updating the relationship repre-
sentations, specifically updating holding representations.
To summarize, the findings revealed a continuum of non-verbal
holding representations, beginning with active belly-to-belly
holding images – usually of an infant – and ending in symbolic-
representations depicting older child figures. The middle categories
depicted a gradually increasing element of passive holding par-
allel to maternal strategies which enable autonomy. Maternal
affects which accompanied this developmental continuum reflect
an ambivalent maternal experience, moving from pleasure and joy
attached to the new abilities the child had gained, to feelings of
loss, longing, and concerns relating to the end of the child’s infancy.
In a search of combinations of the two dialectical elements that
characterize parents of preschool children, namely, protection vs.
autonomy-encouragement and recognition vs. separateness, most
of the sculptures in the passive and symbolic categories and half
of the sculptures in the partly-active-holding category were found
to express adaptive holding. The active-holding images are related
to protection-giving in congruence with the safety/protection ele-
ment in maternal holding, and thus did not enable autonomy.
There was no correlation between holding categories and child
age. However, an interesting finding in regard to passive holding
and child gender was discovered: most of the mothers who sculpted
passive holding were mothers to boys (70% of this category). It could
be hypothesized that mothers encourage independence more in
boys than in girls (Lytton & Romney, 1991).
Discussion
The phenomenology of visual maternal holding representations
The present study contributed to knowledge about maternal
non-verbal holding representations of a child post-infancy, during
the preschool years. The findings present a continuum of hold-
ing images that range from active to symbolic-representations of
holding through the interweaving of passive stances. The passive
element in maternal holding can be seen as part of the process
of “letting go”, as a developmentally appropriate parental task of
encouraging child’s autonomy. Maternal holding thus expressed
mother’s confidence in her child’s abilities, and reflected variable
degrees of autonomy-granting.
Our findings agree with Slochower’s (1996) theoretical and clin-
ical contentions regarding holding after the first year of life. She
defined “holding self-involvement” as holding that occurs when
the mother functions as a background to the child’s self-exploration
activities, and describes the mother’s ability to support the child’s
emerging autonomy. She delineated this concept as a develop-
mental expansion of the classic Winnicotian holding metaphor
during infancy; it is parental holding, due to the parent’s presence
and his/her potential availability to his/her child. Holding self-
involvement includes the parent’s willingness to be present, his/her
 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125
ability to contain his/her subjective experiences without express-
ing them, and his/her willingness “to tolerate being useless in the
child’s presence without withdrawing or intruding” (Slochower,
1996, p. 63). An opposite case was delineated by Mandelbaum and
Shapiro (2011), when the caregiver does not enable his/her child a
space to explore his/her inner processes, or to simply recover from
stimulation. These authors define this caregiver as “smothering”.
The current study demonstrated the inclusion of encouraging or
allowing autonomy in maternal holding. Intrinsic to this parental
task and embodied in the passive element in maternal holding is
the capacity to recognize separateness in the child (Lanyado, 1999).
According to Ogden (2004), when a mother is able to tolerate her
separateness from her child, she recognizes that she is no longer
his/her entire world. This recognition is usually accompanied with
great pain, but also a relief. Dunbar (2008) studied mothers’ expe-
riences of their toddlers’ separateness and found high ambivalence
and oscillations between experiences of loss, anxiety, and dan-
ger, and positive perceptions of separateness and boundaries as
enabling maternal competency, and retaining mothers’ own iden-
tity. The mothers experienced conflict between feelings of loss and
relief due to separation (Parker, 2005). This emotional ambivalence,
which is linked to separateness and holding, can represent one of
many dialectical tensions embedded in the matrix of motherhood
(Oberman & Josselson, 1996). The continuum ranges from actively
holding the child and providing him/her a protective shield at the
price of his/her autonomy, to letting the child explore more freely
at the price of full protection and body contact. However, a number
of issues regarding maternal developmental-holding representa-
tions have not yet been explored, such as what helps the mother
overcome her fear for the child safety and feeling of loss when she
relegates active holding, and what triggers her to move along the
holding continuum. The current discussion will try to address these
issues.
In active holding, mothers reported their wish to protect, but at
the same time described their doubts regarding the ability of their
holding to adapt to their child’s need for autonomy. This finding is
a developmental expansion of Stern’s (1995) theory regarding “the
primary relatedness theme” that emerges when a woman becomes
a mother. According to this theory, the mother questions whether
she can engage emotionally with her baby and if that engagement
will assure the baby’s development. The mother asks, for example,
whether she will be able to “read” her baby, whether she will be able
to respond best to his/her needs. Stern limited primary relatedness
to the first year of life. The current study demonstrated the mothers’
continued preoccupation with the way she should relate to/hold
her child beyond infancy. In preschool years the question of how
to respond best to the child’s needs confronts the mother with the
dialectical tension between the child’s need to practice autonomy
and his/her need to be safe (Blum, 2004; Lieberman, 1996).
When progressing along the holding continuum, it can be
argued that in the partly-active category, the separateness issue
aroused in the mother’s mind at the point at which the passive ele-
ment appeared. This finding strengthens the thematic relationship
between the parental passive element as a “letting go” task and sep-
arateness. When mothers take one hand away they recognize the
child’s ability to stand up on his/her own, to enlarge the distance,
and separate. Mahler, Pine, and Bergman (1975) suggested that
the development of an infant’s locomotion and his/her exploration
of the surroundings, pave the way to separateness. Interestingly,
when the mothers were faced with separateness they neverthe-
less reported a sense of maternal competency. As Naomi said, she
perceived her maternal container as an “infinite” surface for her
child. Similarly, although the “reservoir” that Ayala sculpted rep-
resented her child’s independence, it was still a part of the mother
figure’s body. It could be hypothesized that experiences of mater-
nal competency in the context of recognizing the child’s growing
123
autonomy and separateness reflects maternal flexible ability to
adapt maternal behavior to the child development. In the context
of child’s growing independence and separateness, Furman (1994,
1996) highlighted that the relations between mothers and toddlers
deal with the most intense challenge of changing the balance in
mothers investment – from narcissistic investment in their child
as non-separable, into object investment to perceive the child as a
separate person.
Inasmuch as the passive element becomes a prominent char-
acteristic of maternal holding, maternal awareness of the child’s
autonomy needs is prominent, as are her emotional reactions
towards it. Affect representations were bipolar: on one hand, there
were feelings of joy and pleasure stemming from their sense of
pride and relief from maternal work when the child was more
independent; on the other, there were feelings of loss, longing, and
concern related to the child’s increasing distance. These findings are
parallel to Blos’ (1985) clinical insights in regard to mothers’ emo-
tional reactions to the toddler’s increasing awareness of his or her
psychological separateness. Blos explained some mothers’ sadness
as a reaction to the loss of the earlier “oneness” experience with the
child, while the relief others experience as a reaction to situations
in which the “oneness” was not pleasurable. In addition, it could be
argued that the profound sense of loss that mothers experience at
this phase of developmental change presents beneath the sense of
new worlds that are being gained (Stern, 1995). For example, the
emergence of separateness usually occurs together with new levels
of reciprocity and mutuality (Mahler et al., 1975).
In the symbolic-representations-of-holding category, the
sculpting processes were accompanied by an inner process of
evolving differentiated and updated dyadic images out of symbi-
otic dyads. These processes reflected in vivo a space of thinking
in which the mother remembers past representations of her
relationship with her child, and updates them to the present. It
could be argued that the process of such parental representations
updating is an ongoing and active process that requires the parent’s
continuous attention. It could also be hypothesized that moth-
ers who sculpted symbolic holding representations, internally
embrace primary maternal holding representations. These internal
holding representations function as maternal mentally “emotional
refueling” (Mahler et al., 1975) when their child expands his or her
distance from the mother.
To summarize, the continuum of non-verbal maternal holding
representations revealed a developmental sequence that elucidates
the maternal perspective. The mother’s dilemma with regard to
holding her preschool child, together with her emotional experi-
ence when she gradually proceeds along the holding continuum,
reflects the great effort mothers invest in the process of being
more passive in their holding. Being more passive in this context
is a strenuous process, which demands cognitive and emotional
activity on the part of the mother. Each holding category reflected
differentiated mental representations in regard to holding. An
overview of these representations reveals cognitive and affective
maternal representations that probably contribute to a gradual and
continual development of revisiting holding representations. The
cognitive representations comprise the mothers’ critical thinking
regarding the adaptability of their holding to their child’s needs,
the mothers’ efforts to feel competent in light of their child’s
growing independence, and ongoing processes of updating hold-
ing representations. The affective representations include bipolar
experiences, or as Dunbar (2008) characterized them “bittersweet
experience”. Winnicott (1960), speaking about holding, described
the mother’s perspective,
“It is in any case a difficult thing for a mother to separate from
her infant at the same speed at which the infant needs to become
separate from her” (Winnicott, 1960, pp. 53–54).
124 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125
Fig. 9. Karen’s sculpture.
The maternal container space or symbolic gesture of connected-
ness in the sculptures reflected the mothers’ creative and adaptive
solutions to the dialectical dilemma presented by the preschool
child.
Directions for future research would involve studying visual
representations of holding with mothers to children of different
ages, or conducting a longitudinal study, in which mothers sculpt
themselves and their child at different phases of development. An
additional methodological issue should be noted. The present study
did not assess the child’s variables, although it is well accepted that
child predisposition has a significant role in determining the nature
of maternal care, including maternal holding (Fonagy, 2001).
Clinical application
Creative processes and their derivatives reflect primary pro-
cesses of expression and are known to reflect a variety of mental
states such as thoughts, affects, defensive processes and self-
growth at different levels of awareness (e.g. Freud, 1908, 1928).
The following vignette illustrates how clay sculpting of mother
and child reflects the mother’s growth in terms of maternal repre-
sentations of holding and supported parental-mentalization (Slade,
2005), which depicts the parent’s reflection upon his/her own expe-
rience as a parent. The vignette was drawn from a dyadic art therapy
setting; with mother Karen and Amir – her five year-old son (the
names are fictitious).
Amir was referred to dyadic art therapy because of his frequent
tantrums. Because Amir’s father worked abroad, Karen was the only
parent at home most of the time. The mother–son dyad had symbi-
otic qualities, for instance Amir tended to cling to his mother while
Karen tended to answer the questions addressed to him. Karen did
her best to please her child in order to avoid his expressions of
anger. She shared with me her fear of going out in public with
her son because of his unexpected outbursts. In terms of mater-
nal representations, Karen perceived her son as dependent and as
incapable of handling frustrations and regulating his emotions. In
terms of holding, Karen did not enable Amir to cope on his own
and tended to hold him over-protectively. In one of the sessions,
Amir disliked his mother’s art piece and hit her while sitting on her
lap. Karen had trouble putting a stop to Amir’s violent behavior.
The goals of the therapy were to foster separateness in the dyad,
empower Karen’s maternal sense of competency and to cultivate
Amir’s ability to regulate his emotions (Beebe & Lachmann, 2002).
A gradual growth process occurred during the therapeutic
course. Both separateness in the dyad and effective self-regulation
on Amir’s part were more evident. At this stage of the therapy, in a
session with Karen alone, I asked her to sculpt herself and her son
in clay (see Fig. 9).
Karen sculpted a maternal container resembling the opening
petals of a flower passively holding a small container with three
balls. She said that the central structure illustrated her son. While
observing the sculpture, we discovered that in addition to her
maternal strives to let go (as seen by her opening container form),
she used the small container to depict her son’s ability to hold him-
self. The sculpture illustrated Karen’s developing trust in her son’s
ability to rely on himself and contain his emotions. However, while
observing the sculpture, Karen experienced a sudden insight into
her previous tendency to perceive and preserve her son as a depen-
dent baby who needs to be held tightly. Karen observed that as a
dependent baby, he helped to fill up her emptiness and this insight
was instigated by her visual observation of the sculpture. She then
said that she understands that she must find other ways to fulfill
herself besides through mothering. This directive to sculpt herself
with her child, asked Karen to sculpt herself as a mother (self por-
trait) served as a tool which assisted her to “step back from an
experience and to reflect on that experience” (Alter-Muri, 2007,
p. 331). This session led to Karen’s self-exploration regarding her
subjective experiences and her identity.
The mother–child clay sculpture reflected maternal growth in
terms of holding representations and in terms of trust in the child’s
capacity for self regulation. Furthermore, the sculpture facilitated
parental mentalization regarding the mother’s personal needs and
future growth directions (Bat Or, 2010). The creative process of
molding a mother–child sculpture and the observation about the
sculpture reflect the maternal dialectics of holding as involving
protection-giving and autonomy encouragement, as well as activ-
ity and passivity stances – thereby promoting negotiation between
these poles, towards a more adapted maternal behavior.
Summary
The present study focused on the maternal subjective expe-
rience of holding a child and highlighted the mothers’ emotions
and thoughts with regard to changes in their holding represen-
tations. The clay task of sculpting mother and child served as
“a port of entry” (Stern, 1995) to the mothers’ representational
world, and thus could be a useful therapeutic tool in psychother-
apy/art therapy. The current findings contribute to expanding our
understanding of the maternal experience in regard to holding,
the mother’s continuous adjustment to the growth of her child,
along with the complex affective experience related to it. The
active–passive continuum has far more implications regarding the
specific dilemma stemming from a child’s developmental phase.
It reflects a wider process of separateness and letting-go, through
transforming mothers’ holding arms into symbolic support, con-
nected to maternal inner endeavors that mothers usually hold
within.
Finally, the directive that was given to the mother to sculpt her-
self with her child, can be seen as a mother self-portrait, which
can allow the mother to be open and receptive to herself – an
important element of therapeutic growth (Alter-Muri, 2007). Clay’s
three dimensionality provided the opportunity to see the sculp-
tures from more than one vantage point (Buchalter, 2004), thus
enabled an observation of multiple, and sometimes hidden, aspects
in the complex subjective experience of being a mother.
Acknowledgments
I would like to express my deepest thanks to Prof. Ofra Mayseless
for her generous and substantial contribution to this research and
paper. Over the course of our journey, I have had the privilege of
experiencing her loving and inspiring holding.
 M. Bat Or / The Arts in Psychotherapy 39 (2012) 117–125
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