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From the Early Child Development Program and Project, Henri Parens, M.D., Director and Principal Investigator; Leafy Pollock, M.S.W., Associate Investigator; Joan Stern, M.D., Associate Investigator; and Selma Kramer, M.D., Consultant-Investigator. Eastern Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute, Children's Unit, and the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Child Psychiatry Section. Project #3: Studies in Early Gender Formation.
OUR CHILD DEVELOPMENT RESEARCHES have centered on attempts to correlate aspects of the mother-child relationship with the development of psychic structure in the child (Parens, 1971a); (Parens et al., 1970). In the course of these psychoanalytic direct observational researches, several findings imposed themselves on us in such a manner that each became an object of formal study.
Mary, two years, three months, and fourteen days of age, shows most unexpectedly a powerful push from within, a most remarkable peremptoriness, to get her hands on Mrs. J.'s one-month-old baby. Seemingly unaware of the obstacle, she climbs over four-year-old Minnie to get to the baby Mrs. J. is holding. The pressure of her wish to hold that baby becomes uncomfortable for Mrs. J., and Mary's mother is called in to help Mary contain her pressured push to hold the baby. Vocalizing sharp unpleasurable feelings, Mary struggles against her mother's intervention. A moment later she chants, beaming, "My baby, my baby." From all indications, in the more than 24 months that follow, Mary is driven to own a