ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on how a "mad seed" develops as well as how it differs from a "normal" core. Even though many investigators currently reduce the study of madness to biological formulations concerning genes, biochemistry, and brain anatomy, it remains important not to overlook the psychological components in the formation of the seed of madness. The "seed of madness" differs from one patient to another although they are all alike in respect to the utilization by the associated primitive ego mechanisms of fusion-defusion, introjective–projective cycles, and the (re)activation of transitional objects and phenomena to relate to and control object relations. The chapter also focuses on research regarding the infant's psychobiological potentials and the details of the mother–child interactions that activate them. Clinical work with patients remains necessary in order to "reconstruct" the meaning of undifferentiated and subsequently poorly differentiated early mother–child experiences.
