ABSTRACT
In working psychoanalytically with toddlers and children, the child analyst encounters behaviours, anxiety states, and syndromes that may be said to result from a failure of the early symbolization process. This chapter discusses the outlines of normal and pathological development of representation in early childhood. The ability to symbolize is predicated upon the capacity for representation, which is, in turn, fostered by the infant’s primary object relationships. The child’s representation of the mother begins with imitation, introjection and ultimately progresses to identification. Displacement and the use of equivalences are pre-symbolic functions that rest upon and strengthen the infant’s internal capacity for representation. Through integrating the maternal presence and identifying with her maternal capacity, the young child builds up a system of representations of himself-with-mother. Depressed, traumatized, or physically ill parents may be unable to dream or play with their infants, and the resulting failure to give meaning to their baby’s behaviour may impair the development of the latter’s representational capacities.
