ABSTRACT

The concepts of mental objects presented above-representation (schema) and phantasy-do not carry developmental implications. As defined here, representation refers not to a developmental level (as in Piaget’s theory, which is a theory of the development of mental structures) but rather to an organization of meanings which serves to organize and filter ongoing experience (and also, retrospectively, memory). While such organizations are assumed to develop throughout childhood and later life, such development involves the content of the representations and not their structure. This concept does not carry any assumptions about the structural differences between representations at different ages, although, of course, the content, both ideational and emotional, is considered to undergo dramatic changes during the different stages of childhood.