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Dr. Devereux raises the interesting question of why we do not recognize the cannibalism of adults as such as a separate psychological entity. I suggest that the “cannibalism” of
adults of our culture is unique only in the sense that it is a normal maturation of an infantile state. There is a tendency to respond to behavior in an adult as if that which is mature is the result of abandonment of the infantile core of the personality, rather than the manifestation of maturation of that core.
Maturity is then seen in the limited way the peak of a mountain is seen when its base is obscured by clouds. The concept of sublimation has fostered this approach. In spite of the fog, however, the base of the mountain remains the base for its peak.
As we examine the peak, we may falsely identify the base of it unless we trace carefully the contour of its structure. As Dr. Devereux has stressed, the visible psychological peak of adult “cannibalism” may not have as its primary base the oral aggressive impulses of infancy.
Our understanding of the first year of life remains speculative. The concept of the symbiotic relationship between infant and mother would, within our present knowledge, seem to describe most clearly the early state of the infant-mother relationship. The mother is aware of her separateness from the infant but feels herself emotionally to be, and responds as if she were, one with him.
From the standpoint of the mother the symbiotic relationship between the infant and the mother brings out clearly that the mother has never destroyed the bridge, but is able, under stimulus of motherhood, to dispel the fog that has hidden it. She holds her infant in her psychological uterus, until the infant is ready for psychological birth as a self. This early oneness with the infant has been described by others as regression on the part of the mother; is it not rather a reactivation of a capacity that has remained dormant until needed? If the mother is able to allow psychological birt