ABSTRACT
This chapter describes that the relationship between Jack and his mother illustrates the personal and idiosyncratic way in which early mother-child attachment can go wrong, on the basis of the kind of inner neurotic processes. Two features distinguish the study of emotional from that of physical, intellectual, and social development and from considerations of temperament: the importance of individual uniqueness and the contribution of the subjective viewpoint. Psychoanalysis has made its particular contribution by postulating universal psychological structures and mechanisms mediating between inner experiences and between experience and behaviour. Other ego mechanisms enhancing social maturity are imitation of and identification with loved and respected adults to form one's ideal self, and finally introjections or incorporation of the standards of such adults to form one's conscience. The exasperation of scientific psychologists with psychoanalysis may in part reflect the complexities of the issues, rather than an inherent impossibility of a scientific approach in the field.
