ABSTRACT
Wilfred Bion's work, Learning from Experience in particular, demonstrates that one can speak in a coherent manner of the baby's thoughts and thinking. It considers here a particular situation which shows how the baby's thinking contributes to the deepening of the relationship with the mother, and thus to the child's development. Thinking these thoughts helps restore their relationship with that good internal object. The relationship with both the good internal mother and with the mother in external reality is consolidated while the store of unconscious thoughts increases. A representation is considered to be symbolic, or a symbol, when the thought, and what the thought refers to, and what represents that thought in the external world, remain distinct in the baby's mind. The proximity of the observer evokes the thought of a good presence which would alleviate his misery, an experience that has its source in the good maternal object in his internal world.
