ABSTRACT
The usual method pursued by older schools of child-psychology in treating the problem of the ego was to enquire for the earliest conscious perception of the ego and to take as sign of this the first appearance of the right use of words referring to self. The most direct and uninterrupted manifestation of the ego-aim is self-affirmation. The child demonstrates, deports and realizes himself as a living entity, a one complete centre of power. As long as self-affirmation can express itself unhindered it is reflected in the consciousness as self-enjoyment. The very use even of terms applied to mature human beings, such as "auto-eroticism", "Narcissmus", "self-love", distorts from the very first the representation of the childish mental condition which is supposed to be adequately described by these words. The primitive self-affirming ego finds itself in a world with which his conscious relationship has yet to be acquired.
