ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses the circumstances of the baby's psychological birth. The relationship between the fact of the physical birth and the timing of the psychological birth has been a much debated matter. Depending on the underlying unconscious phantasy and the predominant conscious fantasies, birth itself will be experienced as a joy, as a wonder, a relief, a loss, a trauma, a discovery; probably a mixture of all these. The chapter presents example to understand something of the impact upon one little boy, Tommy, of the intricate correspondences between the circumstances of his conception, gestation and birth, his mother's pre-natal fantasies and post-natal attitudes, and his own early emotions and behaviour. This example describes, writ-large, experiences which resonate with the kinds of internal turmoil and ambivalence that the pregnancy and birth of a first child so often bring about. There are profound anxieties in many mothers about loss, and fears about change.
