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I very much appreciate the two encouraging comments on my paper. Each considers the interrelation between primary independence and dependent identity. Their study leads to fascinating developments which make the concepts now appear like the outlines of an over-all map of a territory whose boundaries interlace kaleidoscopically. Already I would no longer be content to use infantile dependence as a global concept but rather break it up by asking: dependence on mother for what? And next I find it necessary to differentiate between an infant's actual dependence on his mother and the development of his capacity to appreciate it through the rewards that derive from it: warmth, food, comfort; tolerance of the infant's onslaught and so forth.
Replying to specific points raised in the Comments—I would not conceive, as Wilke proposes, that the primary self is the antithesis of the child being psychically part of his mother since the latter is a development out of the former. The antithesis of the child being part of his mother is of the mother being part of her child, a state of affairs which is implied in Jung's conceptions of identity, while it is the merit of Freud's speculation to have thrown it starkly into relief.
I fully agree with Hubback that I did not give sufficient space to Bettelheim's conclusions derived from the study of autistic and schizophrenic children, so I am glad to have an opportunity of adding something here. His inspiring work, which sometimes has an epic quality about it, has been and