ABSTRACT
The psychoanalyst and infant researcher Daniel Stern has in many respects been a pioneer in research areas. With his developmental model he wishes to contribute to a greater understanding of the infant and how it experiences the world—both itself and others. Amodal perception deals with the ability to translate impressions from one sense to the other, as well as storing impressions across the senses. The different senses of self have parallel domains of relatedness. The development of the self and the development of relationships are in all respects two sides of the same coin. Language is a new form of relatedness. Language also poses a problem for the integration of the senses of self and the sense of self-with-others. In Stern’s opinion, the infant is capable of experiencing a sense of an emergent self right from the very beginning, and it is active in forming an emergent sense of self in the course of the first two months.
