ABSTRACT
When a woman has a strong male identification she finds this part of her mothering function most difficult to achieve, and repressed penis envy leaves but little room for primary maternal preoccupation. Instead of taking for granted the good effect of an early and temporary preoccupation they are caught up in the child’s need for therapy, that is to say, for a prolonged period of adaptation to need, or spoiling. Maternal failures produce phases of reaction to impingement and these reactions interrupt the ‘going on being’ of the infant. An excess of this reacting produces not frustration but a threat of annihilation. The individual self starts as a summation of resting experience, spontaneous motility, and sensation, return from activity to rest, and the gradual establishment of a capacity to wait for recovery from annihilations; annihilations that result from reactions to environmental impingement.
