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It is the purpose of this communication to group together a certain set of clinical phenomena, the central theme of which has to do with that particular state of ease or well-being connoted by the term 'poise'. An attempt will be made to describe and clarify from the psycho-analytic point of view some of the psychological concomitants of this state, an attempt which seems indicated and which I hope may even prove fruitful inasmuch as this particular qualitative state of psychic equilibrium seems to rank high among the various pleasurable states striven for by man. I believe we shall find that a consideration of it will reveal it to possess specificity and to have delineable borders.
Perhaps it might be well at this point, in anticipation of the material to follow, and, I hope, without detracting from it, to make the following general introductory statement. Clinical observations lead me to advance the hypothesis that the feeling of poise may be in large part related to, and centred around, mouth and perioral sensations. The feeling of being at ease, comfortable, poised in a social situation or interpersonal relationship, or the opposite feeling, that of being shaky, insecure, ill-at-ease, is at least in many instances expressed and accompanied by the state of satisfaction or dissatisfaction of oral instinctual needs in the muscles and skin around the mouth. An absence of tension in these is associated with a feeling of ease and poise, while accumulated tension in this area goes with the feeling of being ill at ease. The sensations involved are proprioceptive ones. The development and elaboration of the function and psychic significance of this perioral zone may be considered a secondary theme and purpose of this communication. However, while this specific linkage is being singled out as a particularly focal one and perhaps as a basic point of origin and orientation, it will not surprise us to find that the state we are setting out to describe is a complex on