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Every point of thought is the centre of an intellectual world
I have started with this observation of Keats because I know that my paper contains only one idea, a rather obvious idea at that, and I have used the opportunity for re-presenting my formulations of early stages in the emotional development of the human infant. First I shall describe object-relating and I only gradually get to the subject of communicating.
Starting from no fixed place I soon came, while preparing this paper for a foreign society, to staking a claim, to my surprise, to the right not to communicate. This was a protest from the core of me to the frightening fantasy of being infinitely exploited. In another language this would be the fantasy of being eaten or swallowed up. In the language of this paper it is the fantasy of being found. There is a considerable literature on the psycho-analytic patient's silences, but I shall not study or summarize this literature here and now. Also I am not attempting to deal comprehensively with the subject of communication, and in fact I shall allow myself considerable latitude in following my theme wherever it takes me. Eventually I shall allow a subsidiary theme, the study of opposites. First I find I need to restate some of my views on early object-relating.
Looking directly at communication and the capacity to communicate one can see that this is closely bound up with relating to objects. Relating to objects is a complex phenomenon and the development of a capacity to relate to objects is by no means a matter simply of the maturational process. As always, maturation