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The problem of passivity is a chronic one in psychoanalytic theory and practice. As a concept it has been examined by a succession of thinkers from Freud to our day, each approaching it from a somewhat
different point of view and each adding to our enlightenment, although not providing the definitive conceptual clarification we seek. In a previous book, Patterns of Mothering, Sylvia Brody, an eminent child analyst and investigator, cast sharp light on the variations of early interactions of mother and infant. She now explores the problem further in an extensive and detailed report of the analyses of two preadolescent boys whose hypnagogic experiences formed the basis of much of their analytic work.
Much of the difficulty in earlier considerations of the question of passivity has been a failure to define adequately the terms used. Dr. Brody avoids this pitfall. By surveying the literature in detail she succeeds in exposing our conceptual confusion, and by clearly differentiating among passive aims, passive experiences, and passive behavior, she removes a good deal of the chaos. For example, she emphasizes the fact that the infant who is cared for by his mother is not necessarily passive; he may, to the limit of his maturational capacities, be active in pursuit of his aims and he may be involved in aims which are in themselves active, such as to suck or move about. Dr. Brody sees passivity essentially as the persistence of, or regression to, oral aims in later developmental phases. In this she follows the lines of thought laid down by Lewin. She uses, to great advantage and with remarkable penetration, his conception of the oral triad, integrates the hypnagogic experiences reported by her patients with his observations on the dream screen, and shows how wishes to be cared for by mother, and to submit to her, underlie the clinical neurotic patterns in these children.
Particularly brilliant and incisive is Dr. Brody's chapter on the formation of the body image,