ABSTRACT
Wilfred Bion described the importance, in psychoanalytic work with psychotic patients, of making contact with the 'non-psychotic part of the personality'. The psychoanalytic theory of the need and capacity of every ordinary child first to relate intensely to and gradually to identify with both of his parents contributes greatly to the understanding of normal child development. From the moment of birth, as the psychoanalyst Melanie Klein maintained, and developmental psychology research has subsequently demonstrated, normal babies are now known to be extremely precocious socially. Therapists try to identify and facilitate the precursors of social relatedness: the technique draws on findings into the ways in which mothers communicate with their babies, and into how this facilitates the infant's capacity for communication and relatedness. Eventually, the baby finds active ways of getting mother's attention back, through communicative pointing and expressive sounds.
