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DISCUSSION: Dr. Louis Kaywin expressed his agreement with most of Dr. Stern's general concepts. The main problem it seemed to him is to explain how a blank
or stuporous state can be revived in anticipation, since recall or registration cannot be expected in a state of stupor. The state of stupor requires further clarification, clinically and metapsychologically.
Dr. Judith Kestenberg thought that at this point of infant study, when we know so little about the beginning of psychic functioning, the validity of Dr. Stern's impressive psychobiologic theory cannot depend completely on our clinical experience. She reported cases from her own material in which Dr. Stern's primary defenses persisted beyond the postnatal period, usually in very disturbed infants. Differences in flow of movements and thoughts in children reflect what Dr. Stern calls oscillation in the anticipatory process.
Dr. Max Schur felt that while analogy was of some value, the use of the physiologic 'stress' reaction as a conceptual model for psychology was of questionable value. Dr. Mark Kanzer directed his attention primarily to the body-mind relationship suggested by Dr. Stern's concepts. He commented that we are presented with the problems of how anticipatory mechanisms of the body find expression in the id, which is regarded as unstructured and as giving rise to wishes that seek immediate discharge, whereas the ego, to which we assign anticipatory functions, has no direct connection with the homeostatic regulatory mechanisms of the body. Dr. Kanzer thought there may well be some link between preadaptive mechanisms of the body—a term he prefers to protoanticipation—and the ego structures.
Dr. Joseph Coltrera deemed any attempt at correlation between body and mind premature. Defenses which he defined as structuralized delay cannot be explained by the reflex arc. We cannot even speak of protodefenses before this delay appears at approximately eight to twelve months.
Dr. Jan Frank considered Dr