ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the idea of the original self in 1947 it was part of an explanation for the appearance of integrative self symbols in the imagination and dream imagery of children. The single observation expanded the idea of a positive relation between the self and the ego, which one had already observed in older children, to very early on in life. The idea that the self deintegrates, rather than splits or disintegrates grew out of this line of thought. The achievement is a maturation of the ego brought about by both integrative and deintegrative processes in the self and learning through its interaction with the environment. Leaving aside the question of at what stage in maturation these experiences take place, they catch the nature of early archetypal experience very well. There is a characteristic of archetypal imagery which was particularly relevant to the idea of deintegrate.
