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In this ground-breaking book, Krueger argues that a person's healthy and mature sense of self holds in its core a distinct, cohesive, and accurate body-self. Bodily experiences and sensations, internal and surface, he explains, form the core around which the ego develops, and as the kinesthetic body boundaries are being determined, an important parallel process occurs with psychic boundary formation and functioning.
Krueger's basic premise is that the initial formation of a healthy body self is prerequisite to further expansion and cohesiveness of the total sense of self. The mother's attunement to her infant is of paramount psychological import. As children see themselves through the mother's empathy (in her facial expressions and responses, for example) they begin to experience a sense of effectiveness. On the other hand, if her responses are predictably inaccurate and not empathically attuned, there will be no sense of consistent experience of effectiveness and mastery.
The experience of effectiveness has its genetic roots in early infancy. According to developmental research, the desire for mastery is a natural and universal wish of children and can be traced back to as early as four months of age. This is the time when the