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This is the first of several promised papers on the body scheme. One of Scott's noteworthy conclusions is that more progress will be made by psychoanalysts if the division between the psychic ego and the body ego is viewed as symptomatic—as a symptom of splitting which may not necessarily be ego-syntonic. He begins his thesis by an attempt to define body scheme as an integration, conscious and unconscious, of sensations, perceptions, conceptions, affects, memories and images of the body with content which spreads from a surface boundary outwards to the limits of space and time.
Researches in embryology by Gesell and Coghill on postural reactions, respiration, and integration of muscular behavior in the fetus are quoted to show the importance of antecedent postural responses for thought and awareness. Some scattered papers from the literature are the neurological accretions to the thesis, with the notable omission of K. Goldstein's and M. B. Bender's recent researches. The psychological papers mentioned do not take cognizance of the importance of the field theorists in relation to body scheme. Likewise, E. H. Erikson's concepts of ego development, so important to the psychoanalytic theory of this thesis, are not mentioned.
In spite of these omissions the paper is stimulating, especially Scott's ideas about problems in parapsychology. 'To me these problems are similar to those found in some patients who have had a period of Jungian analysis. Content which becomes conscious in such patients and is related by them to the collective unconscious may be used both 1, to link themselves to the body scheme of other people—especially to the unconscious body scheme of other people, and 2, to link themselves directly to ancestors.'