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In this commentary, I develop the idea that a person's beliefs about oneself and one's interpersonal world are central to one's psychic reality. In addition, I try to show that certain of a person's maladaptive beliefs about oneself and one's world are pathogenic in that they may give rise to psychopathology.
Reliable knowledge about oneself and one's world is necessary for survival. The human being is highly motivated to acquire such knowledge. Indeed, after only a few weeks the infant begins to make and test hypotheses about how the parents are likely to react to him or her. The infant's purpose is to acquire the knowledge that he or she needs to develop a secure relationship with them (Stern, 1985).
The knowledge that an infant (in this discussion, a male infant) acquires from his experiences with his parents has an awesome authority. For the infant and young child, the parents are absolute authorities. The infant has no prior knowledge by which to judge them. Moreover the infant needs a secure relationship with them to survive. Therefore, he must accommodate both to the ways they behave to him and to their implicit and explicit teachings. The infant assumes that the ways his parents treat him are the ways that he should be and will be treated.
If the infant or young child experiences his parents as trustworthy, supportive, and loving, he may develop the belief that he is attractive and likely to attain his goals. This belief is adaptive and may serve him well in the future. If he experiences