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Polished Metal or Stone has been employed for its reflective property for at least 5,000 years. Despite the familiarity of a reflecting surface, the word we use for it, mirror, is derived from mirari “to wonder.” Thus, like the sun, moon, and stars, like birth and death, a reflecting surface, its ubiquity notwithstanding, elicited in man a sense of wonder, puzzlement, and continuous fascination. The roots of the word appear also in miracle and mirage — suggesting the fantastic and the illusory. Like its synonym, reflecting, mirroring has acquired both a physical and a psychological meaning. But while physical reflecting is limited in complexity to the laws of optics, psychic reflecting is extremely rich and varied, reflection being central to human mentation. Similarly, while physical mirroring can bring back only the rays that are put into it, the mirroring of a mother to her child, of an analyst to an analysand, of a friend to a friend, conveys back not only recognition but emotional resonance — a response that establishes the humanity of the two partners in the exchange. Moreover, at any moment the mirroring mother, analyst, or friend may turn into an initiator, seeking in turn a response of emotional attunement. My point is this: drawing analogies from the physical mirror to psychic mirroring is rich in its metaphoric connotations but subject to misleading blurring of distinctions. In this paper I attempt to describe the infant's reaction to the physical mirror as a discrete entity. The