Through the libidinal cathexis of the mother to the infant, the latter undergoes a mirroring experience with the mother in which he perceives not a primary love object but the outlines of his own image as reflected by his mother's unconscious needs for him. Through this experience a primary identity emerges that may be called narcissistic but is not yet a sense of identity. This mirroring is later followed by a pattern of acting and reacting in object relationships; here a true sense of identity is present. In the adult, a return to primary identity maintenance by mirroring may indicate a regressive phenomenon, but may also indicate a second birth in the sense that Erikson and, before him, James delineate.