Making contact

Abstract This paper explores the sense of contact between a mother and baby over the first twelve months of the baby's life. The author focuses on the active role of the baby in seeking the object it needs to find. Notwithstanding some difficulties in the early relationship, the author describes how the baby, by looking for the intimate contact she sensed was available, elicited something more developmental in mother. With particular reference to holding, touching, and looking, the author traces the developing intimacy between mother and baby in terms of an overall shift towards liveliness and playful, adaptive interaction. He demonstrates, with detailed observational material, the extent to which the baby's innate feeling of being alive flourishes through a sense of embodied emotional contact with the mother.