consolidation of individuality and emotional constancy [per Hungarian-American physician/psychiatrist Margaret Mahler’s (1897 – 1996)] , (in psychiatry) the fourth and final subphase in Mahler’s system of the separation-individuation phase of preoedipal development. It begins toward the end of the second year and is seen as open ended. A degree of object constancy is accomplished, and separation of self and object representations is established.
