Husserl in his later years came to realize that his phenomenology, to become the properly foundational science that had always been his goal, would have to take on a genetico-historical focus. Freud, whose familial and cultural background strikingly parallels those of Husserl in some fundamental respects, formulated a theory of psycho-sexual development which greatly influenced Max Scheler’s latest work, and upon which Merleau-Ponty and Ricouer have elaborated their own thought. More recent Freudian studies on infancy, however, if examined from a phenomenologico-existential viewpoint, may apply more directly to Husserl’s goal by illuminating the very onset and development of consciousness. I wish here to present a theory, drawn mostly from Freudian investigations, which has served to clarify my own work as a psychotherapist, and which, I believe, may have an important bearing upon current phenomenological research and philosophy.