In this book, Judith Mitrani investigates the development in infancy of some “extra-ordinary protections” formed to prevent the awareness of traumatic experiences. She lucidly integrates clinical observations with psychoanalytic concepts, such as “unmentalized experience” and its expression in enactments, and “adhesive pseudo-object relations.” She correctly believes that these concepts are helpful for understanding infantile transference-countertransference and enhancing analytic technique with a more informed awareness of primitive mental states.

Adhesive pseudo-object relations are conceptualized as primitive modes of defense that developmentally precede those defenses