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BY SHIFTING the focus from different clinical developmental tasks, such as trust and autonomy, to different senses of the self as explanations of the major changes in the social organization of the infant, we have made it possible to examine different kinds of sensitive periods in early development. Since the major developmental shifts now involve the emergence of new senses of the self, the formative period for each sense of self can be considered sensitive. How critical these formative periods for each sense of the self will ultimately prove to be remains an open empirical issue. The weight of evidence from the neurological and ethological viewpoints, however, argues that the initial period of formation will prove relatively more sensitive than subsequent periods for later functioning (Hofer 1980).
In this chapter we will identify some of the patterns that are seen during the emergence of each sense of self, and we will speculate on how the initial form in which they are established may be critical for later functioning. First, however, several caveats are required.