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It is the purpose of this paper to describe the course of a psychoanalytic treatment of a woman who suffered a developmental arrest in her second year of life. Her transference experiences will be correlated with concepts derived from developmental psychology, learning theory, and communication science. A brief description of the theoretical orientation informing my work follows:
I follow Kohut (1984) in subscribing to the fundamental importance of a reliable organization of the self, understood as a structure functioning as a center of initiative, receiving its unique stamp from the constellation of ambitions and ideals it embodies. I follow Basch (1973, 1974, 1976a, 1977, 1981, 1983) in his description of the origin of the self in an open system developing between mother and baby, mediated initially by their visual interactions. The affect-laden sensorimotor patterns the infant develops in the presymbolic period are gradually unified into an enduring structure during the second year of life when the capacity to symbolize permits the child to objectify his experience. Repression may be said to occur when sensorimotor experiences do not achieve symbolization, for logical operations cannot be performed on what has not been given symbolic representation.
Whereas words may serve as the primary medium for the