ABSTRACT
It is often useful to examine the mixed qualities of the normal by comparing the opposed qualities that are to be found among the ill. Michael Balint has suggested that there is value in contrasting two extreme types of behaviour pattern in the study of the admixture of dependence and independence in the healthy. Environmental failure at the critical moment brings threat of disintegration, and a new defensive pattern is along the line of reaction to impingement, which is the basis of the paranoid personality. These matters are obscure in the direct observation of infants, but become intensely important in the controlled regressions and progressions that appear in analytic practice. Those infants who are lucky in their management at the beginning seem to come to exist and to feel real almost automatically. In health, however, foolhardiness is hidden in special skill, and clinging is hidden in well-justified respect for the skill and reliability of others, and for tradition.
