ABSTRACT
TH E term 'rejection experience' is commonly employed in two rather different senses. It is sometimes reserved for cir-cumstances in which it is apparent to an observer that the parents have withdrawn their affection and approval from the child-where there is objective evidence that their attitude to him has become a rejecting one. Alternatively, the term may be used in a wider sense to include any situation which the child himself interprets as meaning that his parents have ceased to regard him affectionately and have become hostile. We shall here be concerned with rejection experiences in the second sensethat is to say, situations in which the child feels that he is rejected.
