Response to John Rowan

Robert Whyte

Thank you for your letter and for your interest in my paper, `Giving and Taking: TheFoetal-Maternal Placental Junction as a Prototype and Precursor of Object Relations'.

You take issue with a number of points in the theoretical part. Firstly, I should like toadmit freely to using, at times, a dogmatic style in what is speculative writing. Yourletter, it seems to me, at times demonstrates a similar style.

Regarding the quotation from Laing, I have assumed that Freud's `version of theobjective scientific scheme of things' is the only version, and this is obviously not thecase.

You say that Stern is not a researcher. In the bibliography of his book, there aretwelve papers of which he is either the sole or joint author, which strongly suggests thathe is a researcher. The perceptual memories of sounds heard in the womb, althoughquoted by Stern, were indeed not his own research but that of Lipsitt, personallycommunicated to Stern in 1984.

You say that none of the medical textbooks known to you mention a distinctionbetween a foetal placenta and a maternal placenta, and also say that I do not quoteevidence and so you are sceptical. However, I have given the reference to my source, i.e.Baird, D. (1962) Combined Textbook of Obstetrics and Gynaecology (E S LivingstoneLtd). On p. 74, it reads: 'It is of great importance to remember that, although colloquiallythe afterbirth is called the placenta, yet this in reality only represents the foetal part.Biologically, the placenta is an organ developed by mother and child in symbiosis andcan be defined anatomically as the chorion frondosum, the decidua basalis and thechorio-decidual space or blood lake between'.

Since receiving your letter, I have obtained and read your chapter 'Primal Integration'in Innovative Therapy in Britain. I was not previously aware of your work. I see that itcovers some areas on which I have commented although your view of antenatal events isvery different from mine. I could not comment just now on these differences withoutfurther study of your work. I am grateful to you for drawing attention to a number ofworks which had not previously come to my notice.