ABSTRACT
When a child is born, he receives a series of stimuli with which he will construct his body image. With a pedagogical objective, they will be grouped arbitrarily into three categories: Sensoperceptive stimuli, Interaction with the Other who speaks with him, Visual images both of himself and of the helpful person. Among the sensoperceptive stimuli, those received by exteroceptors, proprioceptors and interoceptors will be emphasised. In order to understand the influence of interaction with the Other on the constitution of body image, three interrelated subjects be developed: The influence of the mother in the development of the child’s language, The experience of satisfaction, The night-time processes of separation-individuation. The image of the mother or the father who goes to the child in order to provide him with the extraneous help or to act as a hostile object also has a constitutive power over the body image.
