You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
WHEREAS I ENJOYED READING this paper, it made me realize how little I have thought about the déjà vu experience. Certain areas that have been discussed do, however, overlap with the problems of early development which have preoccupied me, and to which Dr. Pacella adds new dimensions.
I am glad to have his specific description of the shift from dependence on body contact perception to the utilization of visual perception as a leading, organizing agency in the very incipience of object relatedness. It seems to me that there is an almost continuous interplay between the two. Dr. Pacella evokes the picture of the activity of the infant during the first month, alternately seizing the nipple with the mouth and then losing it again as the sphincter-like sucking action of the mouth relaxes. This seems to be the forerunner of a somewhat similar pattern emerging in the focusing and unfocusing of the eyes. It is followed in a later stage by peek-a-boo and the other lose-and-find-again games that are used to establish familiarity and begin reality testing. Vision permits a kind of attachment to the mother, especially to her face, with the focused eyes, while relaxation permits a more distant vision, probably at first blurred and infiltrated with the intake through the other senses as well.