ABSTRACT
The psychic life of the human infant-that is, its subjective dimensions-is an elusive topic of psychological inquiry, standing as a hinterland of contemporary academic infant psychology. In the field of infant psychiatry, however, where there is an emphasis on affective processes and communication, the phenomenology of infancy is a tacit but fundamental part of considering the infant's mental and behavioral status. Most clinicians accept the proposition that there is at least a rudimentary phenomenology of infancy-that infants feel and experience events. Adults, particularly those who are involved in everyday contacts with infants, act as though there is a subjective domain, and there are processes by which adults, particularly primary caregivers, act selectively according to their understanding of the infant's subjectivity. J. Piaget's references to the self here are essentially epistemological, largely centered on the capacity for self-reflective thought. Contemporary theories of early infant cognition emphasize the importance of motor processes in the formation of mental representations of space and objects.
