ABSTRACT
When a child is born, although she cries, she has no well-formulated idea of the end that awaits her, although if we are to believe Wordsworth, she may have “intimations of immortality.” Hence, too, eternity’s opposite, mortality, may be presaged during infancy, especially during painful disruptions in the continuity of the child’s relationship to her caregiver. Bowlby (1958, 1968, 1973) alluded to such an early form of death awareness when he pointed to the role of primary attachments and the threat to the child’s security when absence or loss occurs.
