At very early stages the infant fails to develop a sense of a containing skin. It can then only gain a sense of holding together by sticking, in fantasy, to the outside of objects, giving rise to a form of mimicry which Esther Bick termed adhesive identification. The concept first appears in a Donald Meltzer publication (1975).

Esther Bick's infant observation work showed the skin as a primary object stabilizing the ego in the paranoid-schizoid position. She described the most primitive experiences of falling apart in pieces or, even worse, as a shapeless liquid leaking out. She also described protective measures that an infant may perform with its body and its perception in order to give a greater experience of remaining coherent and contained. She noticed various muscular or verbal abilities which developed precociously as if they were methods for substituting a second skin over a leaky primary containing object.

Certain...