In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development

Throughout In a Different Voice, Gilligan explores the theories of both separation and attachment in human and moral development. Freud’s developmental psychology begins with the attachment of infant to mother and the developmental necessity of the infant detaching from the mother as the source of literal nourishment. Attachment transitions to separation, marking one of the first stages of human development. Attachment in Western psychology has thus often had a negative connotation, indicative of an infantile state out of which one must “progress” to independence.

Gilligan, however, is not interested in attachment as a one-way relationship in which there is utter dependence, as in the case of an infant. Rather, she is interested in the relational attachments that are formed in which people are able to fully use their voices and fully be heard in relationships. These attachments are not ones of dependence—or exploitation.

At the same time, Gilligan acknowledges that separation is also a truth of psychological and moral development. In the case of Gilligan’s central study of women trying to decide whether or not to have an abortion, Gilligan gauges women’s moral development, in part, in their consideration of themselves. She argues that women often have to assume a sense of detachment and separation from others to consider their own lives as valuable in relation to others.

Gilligan points out that the theme of separation and attachment is reiterated in adolescence and adulthood. Attachment and separation of childhood leads to the attachment and separation that marks the possibilities for identity and intimacy in adolescence and then love and work in adulthood. This theme is reiterated throughout life in all developmental stages. “This reiterative counterpoint” (151) in human development, however, tends to be revised in traditional developmental and moral staging as a linear progression of increasing separation, which signifies the independent thought and autonomy that psychologists insist is necessary for success and maturity.

Kohlberg’s moral developmental staging presents independent, rational thinking as the highest form of moral development and excludes attachment. This assumes that moral dilemmas, though grounded in questions about relations, are best approached in isolation. While it is true that independent thinking is often necessary and can be indicative of a high stage of moral development, Kohlberg’s staging resists moral development that might also be achieved collectively—for example, through the work of a community or in dialogue with others. Gilligan believes that, since the women she studied were more prone to relational ethics than the rights-based ethics orientation of many male subjects, male psychologists have unfairly suggested that women’s ethical and moral development is less sophisticated or developed than that of men.

The need for attachment to be considered alongside separation and to be recognized as valuable as separation in theories of human development thus grounds Gilligan’s work. This theme must be understood as a crucial thread in human development as well as in day-to-day living, where each person is constantly navigating between worlds of separation and attachment, minute to minute. The theme of separation and attachment—and the human existence that is embedded in a constant vacillation and flow between the two—is a central “paradox” of human existence.