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La Violence Fondamentale, Bergeret's newest book, is an exposition, fortified with case material, of the author's views on the basic innate life force and its vicissitudes. The reader will find Bergeret's book carefully reasoned and, as usual, lucidly written—in an elegant style that, quite apart from the impressiveness of the author's arguments, repays the reader's efforts. What follows both summarizes and comments on these arguments.
From the beginning the infant exhibits a kind of force vitale or life force (as it appears to the world of adults), something akin to Bergson's élan vital, at first rather undifferentiated as to valence and character. The notion of valence soon becomes relevant, as we notice the infant recoiling from pain (or else trying to smash the source of it) and moving toward what is pleasurable. Still within the first few months of life, these basic tropisms become further refined, as the infant learns that most of what is pleasurable stems from "mother" (here used as signifying the primary caretaker, who will usually, though not always, be the actual biological mother). One thinks in this connection of Fairbairn's comment that the infant is primarily object-seeking. Later work by John Bowlby and Daniel Stern supports further the notion that the infant is born with (neurophysiological) structures predisposing it to become object-seeking (as mediated, for example, through innate smiling and clinging responses).