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The author attempts to use Piaget's formulation in understanding cognition. Consciousness is not present in primary process thinking. Although primary process may be used for various constructive purposes, it is nevertheless a primitive form of thought. Fast clearly differentiates between primary and secondary processes in some places, but in other places, she seems to fuse the two. The early signs of thought process are really those of primary process thinking. In invoking the conceptualizations of Piaget, Fast describes how first the finger is only something to be grasped, but as development proceeds, the finger becomes "seeable" as well as "graspable," and thus it becomes a discrete object. To this abstractor it seems that she is simply describing the development of object relationships. Freud believed that the secondary processes replace primary ones at about the age of two. Fast describes the developmental processes that go on in the infant's growth. (Note, however, that Piaget had no concept of the unconscious.) She goes on to discuss how the capacity for symbolic thought and reality testing leads to cognition. Cognition becomes increasingly refined as the condensations and displacements meet particular needs.