On the Formulation of the Interpretation1

Studies of the infant's emotional life, both through clinical observation (6), (7), (8) and deep analyses, have shown that the mother's contact with her child is of the greatest importance. This resides not only in the fact of contact as such, but also—and sometimes even more—in the manner of this contact, since it is the expression of the unconscious relation towards the baby (the real contact, transmitted through the manner of the external contact). It is not the fact—fundamental of course—of feeding the infant or of changing his diapers, but the subtleties of the way in which this is done, which conditions his experience and therefore his response, his beginning relation to the object.

According to the conclusions drawn by Klein and her collaborators (5), the fundamental aspect of this first object-relation—given the interdependence between internal and external world through the process of projection and introjection—resides in the fact that the characteristics of the external world (those of the object) represent a decisive factor for the modification or reassertion of internal anxieties. Basically these spring from the death instinct, and seem to be more acute in the measure in which they are not sufficiently counteracted and mitigated by the life instinct, that is, the more deficient the degree of fusion between both instincts. The outward projection of 'the bad' (on to the object) is then all the more intense. If owing to its characteristics the object is actually 'bad' for the infant, he simply re-introjects the projected 'badness' without modification, or even in a reinforced manner. On the other hand, if the way in which the breast is given to him (without forcing him, for instance) imprints this breast with a 'good' character, a modification of the projected 'badness' is brought about (by his encounter with 'the good' received), and the introjection that follows already initiates an internal transformation in favour of integration. In the last inst