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A "PREREPRESENTATIONAL SELF" MAY SEEM A CONTRADICtion in terms. How can there be a self before the development of a mental capacity for representation? Still, I hope this contradictory phrase serves a purpose in introducing this essay, one which sets up a questioning frame of mind for thinking about self as process rather than as fixed attainment. Other contradictions of this sort will follow.
This essay will enumerate several fundamental principles for a theory of self-development. These principles emerge from recent research in developmental psychology and from a psychoanalytic-biological systems perspective. Following a review of this research, I shall propose an "affective core" of the self, a notion previously hinted at by Rangell (1976) and Izard (1977). My conclusion will then press the following thesis: because of its biological organization, our affective core guarantees our continuity of experience across development in spite of the many ways we change; it also guarantees that we can understand others who are human.