Constructing the infantile

ABSTRACT

This paper addresses three dimensions that contribute to the constructions of the infantile, as they inform different psychoanalytic perspectives: the infantile body; the infantile mind; and the infantile psyche. Brief reviews of our current knowledge of the infant's physical state and earliest mention, derived from observational and experimental methodologies are presented; raising the question whether psychoanalysts should incorporate such knowledge or rely solely on clinical data. Further, the sources in Freudian texts that legitimate reconstructions of the infantile psyche are examined, while also noting theorists who have chosen alternate approaches. The paper concludes with the assertion that the dimensions which are determined as most germane to a psychoanalyst's construction of the infantile will depend ultimately upon their usefulness in establishing intersubjectivity with patients in clinical practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Infantile body/mind/psyche
• constructions in psychoanalysis
• intersubjectivity

Notes

1 Ultimately, one must accept the symbolic law of the father (le non du père), by which both the child and the (m)other are culturally bound.

2 Thus, it is said that the human infant is both altricial and precocial.

3 Unfortunately, when Freud enshrined these concepts in his “scientific psychology”, he was not able to avoid dragging in two major nineteenth-century biases: social Darwinism and colonialism (Freud 1900, Chapter 7).

4 A Sullivanian analyst might refer to the parataxic distortions that were necessary for the person to feel secure.

5 From Newtonian mechanics Freud took the concepts of energy, force, work and homeostasis.

6 An addition difference is that evolution proceeds probabilistically in relation to different environments, whereas development is goal directed by adults in one environment.