ABSTRACT
Infant observation, experimental infant research and psychodynamic theory are used to explore the early development of internal objects in which there is no differentiation between self and object. Infant observation facilitates the experimentation with the idea that early on identificatory processes predominate over projective mechanisms. Using understanding from infant development research on early perception there is a suggestion that amodal perception may create a different kind of object than natural perception. Described is an understanding of how with amodally shaped objects, representations of the difference between self and other are irrelevant, and with feature-based objects/representations what counts is the difference.
