John Haule - Development of the Self

“Probably the self becomes established, in most cases, through a participation mystique with the mother. A child is born into a space and time in which every person, object, and event is saturated with the feeling-tones of the mother's world. The pre-imagistic ground of the child's world will be established when the child is allowed to be a co-agent in the life-world in which it mystically participates with the mother. This will inevitably involve the ‘grandiose fantasies’ of which Kohut speaks, for in ‘the archetypal world of childhood’ (as Neumann calls it) to be a co-agent with the mother is tantamount to being vice-regent with God (in Islam, the dignity of the human individual rests in great part, on his being God's vice-regent, kahlifah, in completing the work of creation). For the co-agent, the participated world is a secure space/time continuum in which achievement, self-realisation, loving encounter, and all the normal human functions are learned.” (p. 264)

John Haule (1983). Archetype and Integration. Journal of Analytical Psychology, Vol. 28, pp. 253-267