We have confined this report to our observations on the self and object representations of a group of four children in analysis. Our attempt to systematize these has of necessity made use of formulations which derive from our understanding of the earliest stages of ego development. The distribution of instinctual forces in self and object representations is in these children mediated in part by a primitive ego organization which utilizes archaic modes of functioning and which nevertheless shows some small capacity for development under the stress of a modified analytic process, though not always predictably and only for limited periods of time.

We may formulate the following unstable advances: