In psychoanalytic theory, we learn about a strange relationship, both wonderful and terrible, that is the precursor of all relationships to come. The infant, a baby grappling to begin to understand the realities of a new and not-yet-to-be-known world, has a tendency to bite the breast. Love and hate are intermixed, even though these emotions are directed to the same object and are felt quite seperately.
The mother responds - perhaps with a capacity for reverie and containment – to show that she can live with this mix of emotions and survive the attack.

I think of this now, when Anna responds fearfully and angrily to my touch. ‘I hate you, she says: ‘you hate me.’ It is as if the statements are interchangeable. When she hits out, she says, ‘you hit me.’