This paper considers questions at the heart of both psychoanalysis and life: the mysterious nature of introjection; how learning from experience is founded on “experience shared”; the problem of “fit” between mother and baby and the “lacunae” that are its impediment; the nature of “holding” not as mere protection but as enabling the child to have “experiences of himself and of the world in a modulating environment”; the developmental force of “realism”, helped by a “matter of fact response to children's nastier feelings”; above all, the inadequacy of theory by comparison with observed individuality, as in the case examples. The author begins by suggesting that a real awareness of the catastrophes of the wider world can improve our understanding of the anxieties of the young child.