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A main focus of psychoanalytic theorizing in the past decade has been the impact of experimental infancy research on ac counts of early object relations. Reviewing these studies, scholars such as Lichtenberg (1983), Sander (1983), Stechler (1983), and Stern (1983, 1985) have reassessed major tenets of Freudian theory, for example, the sufficiency of drives for explaining object relations (Freud, 1905), the existence of a normal autistic phase, and initial lack of differentiation between self and other (Jacobson, 1964; Mahler, Pine, and Bergman, 1975). Because critics have been judicious in weighing the evidence (Call, Galenson, and Tyson, 1983), an atmosphere exists in which we may identify instances where research validates as well as questions established Freudian tenets. This paper explores such an in stance, namely, the emergence of triadic object relations (TOR).