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The centrality of the human face as symbolic of personality permeates the fabric of human experience. It is often observed that a full face to face sexual encounter is unique to human beings, an event profoundly linked with an earlier structural correlate—the rapt stare of the human infant at the mother's face during feeding. Again, as the infant develops, the appearance of a face or even mask is enough to evoke another uniquely defining quality of the human dimension—an expressively radiant smile. In a related fashion psychoanalytic concern with the “mirror” metaphor in clinical work and the psychology of the self carries an implicit reference to the human face as the center of personality, symbolically linked with reflexive mind.a
More generally, in many times and places the dualities that make up human experience have often been given compressed focus through representations of the human face. In Oscar Wilde's wellknown The Picture of Dorian Gray a hidden picture of the hero functions as a deforming mirror that reflects his deteriorating inner state while his everyday face remains composed. The more encompassing polarity-in-unity principle is implied in portrayals of the Roman god, Janus, guardian of portals and patron of beginnings and endings. He, of course, is shown with two competing or complementary faces, one in front, the other in back of his head. In this vein universal human experiences achieved a shorthand, model summary in the tragic and comic masks of Greek theater.
It is not surprising, then, that psychoanalysis must concern itself with this central symbol of personality, particularly as the constitution