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Freud described vividly how the traumatic experience of birth is connected with the physiologic symptoms of anxiety; yet in the earliest period of its life the infant does not appear to be at all conscious of danger. The desire, previously described, to get into as close a sensual contact as possible with all objects seems to prevail; all memories of the birth trauma appear to be obliterated. Only new painful experiences give evidence of making the mind of the young infant wary. We have to conclude from observation of infants that the birth trauma, although producing adequate physiological response (pulse, breathing) does not constitute a real experience, does not penetrate the infant's mind during birth. The receptivity of the sense organs may not be so far developed as to make a real experience of birth possible.
The characteristic behavior of a young infant is therefore expressive of its desire to experience as many objects with as many senses as possible. It is driven towards objects under the direction of the pleasure principle, in search of objective sensations to which to respond subjectively with pleasure. This urge to come nearer to a pleasant object, this instinctive movement towards objects, lends to the infant's behavior a quality of greed, of wanting to touch, to have, to possess, to incorporate, which is the origin of the tacit assumption that drives are essentially impulses which push us in the direction of objects.
In the instances when according to the pleasure-pain principle the psychic apparatus responds not with pleasure but with pain, the movement of the individual will be to escape, a withdrawal from the object. This is the most primitive