ABSTRACT
The work of picking up earlier experiences and translating them can only be carried out if these primitive experiences are sufficiently available in the course of mental events. When the mental apparatus functions correctly, primitive experiences will have, at least in part, to be reformulated or, perhaps, concatenated within the verbal apparatus. For babies, integrating their subjective experience is an extremely complicated task; it can be carried out only within the relationship with the mother or the primary environment. This kind of integration depends on the capacity of the baby to communicate something of his or her subjective experience to the mother and other significant persons in the environment—it depends on primary interplay. The experiences, thus, have a "messenger" capacity and the ability to symbolize; they are addressed to another subject, they are directed towards that person and attempt to make that other person share the subjective experience.
