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This paper is about the quest for what I call here the mother tongue. It is both my quest and that of a language-deprived, 10-year-old deaf girl. Both require an investigation into the developmental origins of language, and this is elucidated by infant observation and research. My model of early development is based upon that put forward by Michael Fordham, whose postulate of a primary self derives from Jung's concept of the self.
Jung's concept of the self developed out of his idea of the transcendent function (Fordham 1985a). In ‘The transcendent function’, written in 1916, Jung describes the psychological function which mediates between opposites and produces a ‘living, third thing’ when opposites confront one another (Jung 1958, p. 90). Over four decades later, in his prefatory note to ‘The transcendent function’, he recalls the essay as being among ‘the first attempts at a synthetic view of the psychic process in analytic treatment’ (Jung 1958, p. 67). The ‘synthetic view’ refers to Jung's discovery of the integrating function of the self. The ‘self’ in this context is ‘the total personality’, that is, ‘conscious and unconscious’, mind and body (Jung 1921, p. 460).
Fordham draws upon this definition of the self when he postulates a primary self. The primary self is a psycho-somatic integrate that contains the potential of the organism. From before birth the primary self has the functions of both integrating (Jung's ‘synthetic view’)