On the Initial Stage of Psychic Experience

The origin of psychic experience has been of great interest to psychoanalysts from the very beginnings of our science, especially since investigation of child observation has indicated that a newborn child already possesses more specific capacities and traits than could have been expected (e.g., Emde, 1988). Observations of the newborn and small child naturally give no indication of whether meaningful behaviour, like seeking contact with mother, is reciprocated by simultaneous psychic experience, e.g., conscious awareness of striving towards something. Since psychoanalytical conceptions and hypotheses, in accordance with methods of sound scientific principle, are based on empirical observation, and because such observations in psychoanalytical research are comprised of our own conscious or unconscious experiences as well as of those of our patients, it is understandable that nothing can be said with certainty of the initial phases of psychic experience, because those experiences that can be recalled are generally quite sophisticated states of consciousness that contain both affective and cognitive perceptual sensations.

The general view seems to be that the earliest experiences which can be recalled originate in the time period following the first twelve months after birth. Therefore, the theoretical views of the structure and development of the psyche from the onset of the second year of life are more firmly based and more generally accepted than conceptions of earlier development, which, owing to the absence of experiential observations, can only be speculative constructions. The general trend of these constructive ideas appears to be the supposition that the psyche or mind originates or starts to evolve only in the second half of the first year (e.g., Tähkä, 1987). According to this constructive pattern, experiences preceding this period