Years of longitudinal study of infants and children yielded data that could not be sufficiently explained by metapsychological concepts. Furthermore, there was no way of bridging the gap between metapsychology and the data emerging from such fields as neurophysiology, ethology, and Piagetian psychology. The authors attempt to demonstrate that the infant's inevitable crises foster the development of self-regulating functions which in turn evolve into organizing principles (previously called psychic structures). Breaches of integration have a cardinal role in this formulation. This helps clarify the concept of conflict, especially as it leads to the conceptualization of the self as the central psychoanalytic proposition. The self is seen as arising via a series of syntheses which