ABSTRACT
This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part draws attention to environmental deficits as factors in the development of neurosis. It suggests the process as numerous incremental effects from small but persistent doses of separation, especially maternal separation, or more commonly of a kind of emotional separation. The part provides the position of the nurseryman, who recognizes that studying the growth of a plant requires knowledge of the plant, of the soil and of the interaction between the two. It describes the way the spatula represents figures in the real world, as conceived internally by the infant, figures that might be apprehended by the infant in exaggeratedly good or bad ways. The part argues that on the basis of the standard "set situation" could make psychoanalytic observations that give empirical data pertinent to infants, just as clinical psychoanalysis does for children and adults.
