The Primal Bond and its Relationship to Humanization

Based on a reading of Freud’s “Project,” where he specifically emphasizes the prematurity of the newborn human being and the indispensable role of the other in his survival, we would like to show that the experience of being confronted with the enigma of the other and of his or her radical otherness causes the mother’s desiring involvement to take precedence over the satisfaction of her child’s needs. Taking into account the constituent symbolic milestones of her history and inviting her to move from her jouissance towards investing the child as a desiring being, we examine the mother’s essential role in the humanization process.