Anna Freud introduces the discussion by calling attention to the trend to identify the unempathic mother of early infancy as the principal agent of (seemingly irreversible) pathogenesis, and to the absence of data in support of the currently popular hypothesis that the unempathic mother solely determines pathogenesis in her children. An early empathic mother-infant relationship does not safeguard against the loss of early gains and the development of pathology. We must also consider traumatic separation and inadequate caretaking, the mother's resistance to object-differentiated separation and individuation, the infant's vulnerability to diminution