All the contributors to this issue of Psychoanalytic Inquiry, we believe, take the mirroring interaction of mother and infant as a point of departure — whether explicitly or implicitly — even as they explore different vicissitudes attendant to the outcome of this first and prototypical mirroring relationship. We have examinations of both the intrapsychic and interactional nature of successful mother-infant mirroring, along with examinations of the developmental and clinical outcomes of mother-infant mirroring that has been derailed. We also have a range of commentaries — clinical, philosophical, art-historical — on the varieties of self-knowledge and self-expression that embody different sequelae to the infant's earliest mirroring experiences. In short, we have a rich cross section of views on the various tributaries that feed into the individual's sense of self, as mediated by and through the mirroring experiences of life.