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This is a small book with a wide and ambitious scope. From the very introduction, Ivri Kumin reveals the depth of his understanding of psychoanalytic theory and personality development. “Depth” is, in fact, a very apt word here, as it also describes the author's central thesis. In a nutshell, Kumin postulates that the ego function of consciousness is attached to the remnants of the primordial relationship with the mother. Although this relationship is not remembered, it becomes embedded in the developing personality. The attachment to the mother becomes internalized as part of the unconscious ego. This occurs before the infant can differentiate between itself and the mother. These “pre-object” experiences precede symbolic representation and language. Though not remembered, these very early experiences (which may even begin in the womb) continue to influence all of the adult's interpersonal communications and form the foundation of the individual's emotional states themselves, i.e., of affect regulation. Kumin is referring to what Freud called the “unperceived core of the ego.”
I have stated that the author's intent is ambitious because his thesis appears to want to answer fundamental questions of mental functioning, including Freud's question: How are the instincts tamed? The book takes the reader into an in-depth look at the concomitant development of ego functions and the representational world. From the very first paragraph Kumin links his particular ego psychological theory of