ABSTRACT

This chapter describes the developmental process resulting in the differentiation and integration of two major sources of information in human experience: subjective and objective. The major theme in this effort is the differentiation in the child of the subjective and objective perspective and the rich but constantly changing information and awareness that evolves from the interaction of these two different ways of knowing. The chapter examines the development of self-nonself differentiation as the child experiences those early interpersonal relationships that contribute to attachment. The child structures early experience with a perpetual confusion between inner and outer sources of information and it is only when the child is able cognitively to recognize consciously the contribution of his/her own internal states to the interpretation of experience that objective thought is acquired. The chapter concludes with an examination of the positive contribution of the child’s first subjective images, symbols, affects and representations of experience in the enrichment and objectification of later human experience.