Early Psychic Functioning

In the infant&s;s journey from absolute dependence to relative dependence, D. W. Winnicott mapped out three major achievements: integration, personalization and the beginnings of object relating. There is a general tendency towards physical growth, and a tendency towards development in the psychic part of the psycho-somatic partnership; there are in both the physical and the psychological areas the inherited tendencies, and these inherited tendencies on the psyche-side include those that lead towards integration or the attainment of wholeness. A particularly important aspect of integration was referred to by Winnicott as "personalization", by which he meant the acquisition of a personal body scheme with the "psyche indwelling in the soma". Winnicott linked psychic trauma particularly with the idea of impingement, and in order to get an idea of what he meant by trauma it is useful to look at the ways in which the infant and the environment first come into contact in terms of impingement.