ABSTRACT
It has seemed to me that the face stands in a pivotal position at every point along this developmental pathway. At the very beginning—before separation, before there is an object at all—the mother’s face is already there, as that which mediates attachment behavior and perhaps also as the first visual form of an early blissful experience. A little later, though still part of the attachment process, there develops that interactive smiling and looking between faces, the conversation of gestures between infant and mother, which I have suggested is important in laying the foundations of the self. As separation gets under way and the child begins to circle out from the mother, the mother’s face is the beacon to which the child references back for orientation and reaction, and the conversation of smiles and other visually perceived facial expressions becomes the means of keeping in touch and making the distance tolerable.
