Addresses the central issues of infancy. This volume collates the author's mature reflections on the relationship between mothers and their babies and on the psychological processes taking place in the infant around the time of birth and shortly afterwards. The author, a distinguished psychoanalyst, discusses the minimum needs of every baby, breast-feeding as the first dialogue and stuff for dreaming, psychoanalysis and midwifery, the earliest signs of personality and the nature of non-verbal communication in the nursing couple.